More deliberately paced than expected, Haynes’ tabloid-ish melodrama doesn’t quite land that well narratively or emotionally, though it features strong performances throughout.

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I left May December not quite sure what to feel.  It is thematically an interesting film, about Elizabeth (Natalie Portman), an actress hoping to do some contextual research for a role in a new indie feature. 

A controversial one, this role is based on a case that shook America twenty years earlier: back then, Gracie (Julianne Moore), a woman in her mid-thirties had a sexual relationship with Joe, a 13-year-old boy.  Charles Melton plays the now-adult Joe, who is blissfully (well, seemingly) married to Gracie. 

It’s a tale of sensational fiction as director Todd Haynes gives us a tabloid-ish drama—or more accurately, an unabashed melodrama, particularly in his way too conspicuous use of music that recalls the lurid American movies of the ‘80s. 

The performances by the trio are strong and consistent throughout, with special mention to Melton who inhabits his character’s conflicted inner self but plays it off in a laidback way. 

“Do what you have to do and get yourself a hot dog.”

Haynes’ film doesn’t quite land that well narratively or emotionally, and it feels at times too slow-paced to truly engage, a point of concern that I similarly felt, albeit in a more pronounced way, with his previous picture, Dark Waters (2019). 

Whatever you think about May December, it surely will spark some soul-searching.  Notably, the moral issue of an adult romancing a young teen—does the fact that it is an older woman and a younger boy make it much more tolerable? 

Or put it this way: no sane producer today would have dared to back Stanley Kubrick’s Lolita (1962) or Woody Allen’s Manhattan (1979), so Haynes’ approach allows us an alternative way in. 

Furthermore, May December poses the question: how far can an actress go to authenticate the problematic character that she will play?  How does one find the moral centre in such an artistic endeavour?

Grade: B

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