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In Theaters Now
- 2023
- R
- 1 h 57 m
- 2023
- R
- 1 h 57 m
Summary After their relationship ignited a tabloid saga two decades ago, Gracie (Julianne Moore) and Joe (Charles Melton) now lead a seemingly perfect suburban life. Their domestic bliss is disrupted when Elizabeth (Natalie Portman), a famous television actress, arrives in their tight-knit community to research her upcoming role as Gracie. As El...
Directed By: Todd Haynes
Written By: Samy Burch, Alex Mechanik
In Theaters Now
- 2023
- R
- 1 h 57 m
- 2023
- R
- 1 h 57 m
May December
7.0
Where to Watch
Summary After their relationship ignited a tabloid saga two decades ago, Gracie (Julianne Moore) and Joe (Charles Melton) now lead a seemingly perfect suburban life. Their domestic bliss is disrupted when Elizabeth (Natalie Portman), a famous television actress, arrives in their tight-knit community to research her upcoming role as Gracie. As El...
Directed By: Todd Haynes
Written By: Samy Burch, Alex Mechanik
Where to Watch
Top Cast
Metascore
Universal Acclaim
Based on 49 Critic Reviews
85
90% Positive
44 Reviews
44 Reviews
10% Mixed
5 Reviews
5 Reviews
0% Negative
0 Reviews
0 Reviews
Metascore
Universal Acclaim
Based on 49 Critic Reviews
85
90% Positive
44 Reviews
44 Reviews
10% Mixed
5 Reviews
5 Reviews
0% Negative
0 Reviews
0 Reviews
May December is not for people who aren’t willing to engage in works about awful people. The film is daring in its subject matter and its characters, and the actors bring just as much of a deft, disagreeable touch. It is a deeply messed up movie, and it’s all the better for it.
It’s about acting, denial, wrongdoing and the age of consent, but also about growing up, and the different ways we tread through that process, or fail to.
User Score
Generally Favorable
Based on 29 User Ratings
7.0
62% Positive
18 Ratings
18 Ratings
28% Mixed
8 Ratings
8 Ratings
10% Negative
3 Ratings
3 Ratings
User Score
Generally Favorable
Based on 29 User Ratings
7.0
62% Positive
18 Ratings
18 Ratings
28% Mixed
8 Ratings
8 Ratings
10% Negative
3 Ratings
3 Ratings
Forget the awards buzz, just watch this because it’s an incredibly entertaining film.
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Less a movie about a scandal than a movie about a movie about a scandal, it seeks to interrogate and even subvert its own promise of ripped-from-the-tabloids titillation, even as it challenges the predilections of an audience that might seek out such a movie.
Scandalous fun and camp are, you imagine, relatively easy with performers like this. But to give it a soul, too? It makes it monumental.
The film thrives on fascinating juxtapositions, Haynes striking a keen balance between true-life complexities and theatrical melodrama.
Moore captivates as a woman who is either emotionally stunted and unaware or viciously in control of the whole chess board. Director Todd Haynes never cracks to let you know just which one she is. It’s possibly purposeful, but a lack of conclusion left me unsatisfied at the end of an otherwise deliciously disquieting movie.
At times, May December feels like an interrogation of the elusive nature of truth.
When Julianne Moore and Natalie Portman share the screen, the film shines, but when it doesn't, as the viewer, you will have no problem understanding the story, but it doesn't feel like it matters with more enough dramatic weight, because even with so much to explore and delve into considering the nature of the plot and the themes within it, I have to say that much of the treatment given by Todd Haynes is grossly superficial. I mean, he never loses his way, but much of his treatment turns out to be pretty shallow. That was both surprising and unfortunate.
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Twenty-four years ago, a teacher (Julianne Moore) had a relationship with a 13 year-old boy (played by Charles Melton as an adult). Despite the tabloid horrors, they're still together with several kids. Natalie Portman plays a TV actor who's doing research for the role, so she travels to Savannah to meet them. Director Todd Haynes has created an uncomfortable mix of situations that examine dysfunctional relationships and set up unfulfilled expectations. The scenes sometime approach depth, but often stop before any revelations. The melodramatic soundtrack (an adaptation of Michel Legrand's music for The Go-Between) signals dramatic portent, sometimes as comically absurd punctuation. The interesting performances and shift in tones keeps the film interesting, but ultimately it leaves lots of open-ended moments.
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In moviemaking, there’s subtlety, and then there’s subtlety carried too far. In the case of director Todd Haynes’s latest, the filmmaker unfortunately indulges himself far too much in the latter. This story of an actress (Natalie Portman) who visits a middle-aged sex offender (Julianne Moore) to prepare for a role she’s about to play in a movie about her subject’s life never seems to find a footing to stick with and explore. The narrative examines many different aspects of the back story behind the lives of the characters to be portrayed in this pending production without ever really resolving any of them by the time the credits roll. This includes not only the protagonist’s reasons for pursuing her once-underage husband (Charles Melton) – actions that got her jailed and made her fodder for countless tawdry tabloid cover stories – but also the nature of the actress’s real motivations in conducting such an excessively intense in-depth study of her character. In the process, virtually everyone comes across as somewhat unsavory, and, considering that the truth is never clearly revealed about any of them, it begs the question, why should we care about any of this? The film depicts all of this so subtly that it goes beyond nuance, veering into the realm of enigmatic, thereby further reinforcing the notion of why any of us should care. Ironically, these underplayed elements are in stark contrast to some rather obvious (and terribly trite) symbolism, particularly in images related to themes of transition and transformation. The picture’s inconsistent changes in tone don’t help, either, vacillating between allegedly serious drama and a seemingly underdeveloped desire to break out as an exercise in full-fledged camp (which, by the way, probably would have made this a much better offering). The script’s meandering flow and glacial pacing also don’t help, leaving viewers scratching their heads more often than not as to where this story is headed. In the end, all of the foregoing is ultimately quite unfortunate, because there’s definite potential in this project, but it’s never adequately defined and fleshed out. Leads Moore and (especially) Portman turn in admirable efforts to make this material fly, but they simply don’t have enough to work with to make that happen. While there appear to be allusions to themes like the difficulty involved in dealing with long-buried feelings and the fact that we may never be able to adequately grasp the truth behind them (either as outsiders looking in or as active participants in the midst of such dealings), the cryptic handling of those ideas undermines whatever meaningful messages or cinematic value they might have, making all of this seem like just such a big waste of time. Director Haynes has an impressive filmography behind him with such releases as “Poison” (1991), “Far From Heaven” (2002) and “Dark Waters” (2019), but, regrettably, “May December” certainly can’t be counted as part of that list.
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Let's say, this movie is not my type. Because it was considerably hard to finish the movie. Acting, of course, is undeniably good, but the story is just dull. The idea is ethically conflicting, but the process... Boring.
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Another movie made by persons whose only reality is other movies and what's on TV. Todd Haynes, years ago, exhausted his semiotics degree on "Safe", and Bunuel had already done that movie with far more wit, mystery and indirection in the 1960s.
Literary imagination slunk out of the building, carrying an Aeropress and a cardboard box.....
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Production Company
Gloria Sanchez Productions,
Killer Films,
MountainA,
Project Infinity,
Taylor & Dodge
Release Date Nov 17, 2023
Duration 1 h 57 m
Rating R
Awards
New York Film Critics Circle Awards
• 2 Wins & 2 Nominations
Gotham Awards
• 1 Win & 2 Nominations
Montclair Film Festival (MFF)
• 1 Win & 1 Nomination
