Review of May December, directed by Todd Haynes

Here’s a fun fact: I was supposed to see this movie months before it came out on Netflix. In 2023 I was attending the New York Film Festival as a critic, and just as I was preparing to head into Manhattan for the press screening of May December, which I was slated to cover out of the festival (I was almost about to interview Haynes, too, for the outlet I do criticism for), a month’s worth of rainfall flooded Brooklyn.

I was stranded at Barclays Center and waded through a river all the way home. I missed the press screening of Poor Things as a result, too.

In the end, I was forced to watch the movie on Netflix because of what had happened, but I’m not too mad or upset at the weather. This is the reality of climate change, and I was caught up in it in the end. There’s not much I can change about that. So when the film came out on Netflix, I watched it two days after the initial release.

And while I knew about the plot and premise of May December, I was deeply unprepared for what was to come. Interpret that statement as you will.

Let’s get into the review, shall we?

An actress finds herself in between two individuals engaging in a major age gap marriage and situation.

In this movie, Natalie Portman portrays Elizabeth Berry, an actress who we later learn is definitely C-list. She comes to Savannah, Georgia, in order to prepare for her next role. The film’s about a real-life situation in which a seventh grade teacher ended up dating one of her students, and all of these years later, the two of them married.

The movie twists the lore of this story in this way: instead of the woman, Gracie, being a teacher, she meets the boy, Joe, through her son. They worked at a pet store together.

Gracie ends up in prison because of it, but when she was in prison, she had Joe’s kid. Nowadays, they have three kids, and the eldest is in college, while the other two are preparing to graduate high school (they’re twins).

We don’t know from the beginning that Elizabeth isn’t a top actress, as she presents herself otherwise, but it’s through the sly comments other people make that we can start piecing together the truth of her situation.

So Elizabeth invites herself into their home, and begins to observe the couple, especially Gracie. There’s definitely some ticks going on here, as Gracie is a bit neurotic, and Joe acts like he’s still mentally in high school sometimes.

We see an absolutely brilliant performance from Charles Melton here, as the movie escalates, he begins to retreat deeper into that mental space of a man who never really grew up because of trauma and the situation.

Elizabeth goes to the pet store where the two met, then literally reenacts the sex they had by herself in the back room. Totally not weird at all, am I right? She continues to meet people involved in their lives, who paint this picture of Gracie as a good person, but extremely destructive because of what she did to Joe.

In the meantime, Joe raises monarch butterflies, which is a pretty beautiful symbol throughout the film. Elizabeth is invited to the local high school in order to do a question and answer session for the students, which exposes her even more as a nobody.

She’s also asked about a sex and intimate scene during this session, which she makes a comment about morally ambiguous characters that makes one of Joe’s and Gracie’s kids visibly uncomfortable during the encounter.

Right after that, we get the gorgeous scene where Joe smokes weed with his son on the roof, and he breaks down crying in his son’s arms, showing even more how he was stunted.

They all go out to eat in order to celebrate the twins graduating, which leads to an uncomfortable encounter with Georgie, who reveals he knows Gracie was sexually abused by her own family. Elizabeth and Joe sleep with each other after this, and we see that Elizabeth does this just to get a sense of Gracie.

But this destroys Joe, who breaks down after Elizabeth refers to his experiences as a “story,” implying it’s all constructed.

The morning of the twins’ graduation, a butterfly emerges from its cocoon, and Elizabeth prepares to dip from town. Gracie says the sexual abuse story is a lie, then they head to the graduation. Joe wanders by himself, weeping as he watches his kids walk across the stage.

The movie then ends with Elizabeth in the pet store scene of the movie, and she demands another take, saying that it’s just getting started.

Overall Thoughts

One of the obvious highlights of this movie is the incredible acting from everyone all around. It’s been a movie that’s marred by recent controversy, as the man Joe was based off of came forward and said he was uncomfortable with the film and that he was not consulted.

That’s deeply ironic considering the movie is based off of exploitation (Portman’s character) and profiting off of someone’s life in the name of art. I think that was one of the final blows for the award nominations for the film.

That said, I didn’t enjoy the comedic style the movie tried to implement—it wasn’t for me.

It tries to be a soap opera, which is a genre I’m not a fan of, but I can see how someone would enjoy the more over the top technical elements. Melton is the standout for me, and his character was the most interesting—it’s a shame Portman technically is the main character, as I would have enjoyed to see his story at the center.

Intriguing movie overall though. Lots to think about when it comes to taking other people’s stories.

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