In one of my favorite television shows, “Ted Lasso,” one character asks another if his partner makes him a better man. It is meant to shock him out of the toxic romance he’s a part of, but they’re still a couple at the end of the episode.
Something I have discovered is that when you’re in an unhealthy relationship, it can be hard to recognize it from the inside. Director Todd Haynes examines this in his latest film, “May December,” coming to Netflix on Friday.
Elizabeth (Natalie Portman) is an actor preparing for a new role in a film she is producing and starring in. To fully understand the woman that she is portraying, she spends a week with Gracie (Julianne Moore) and Joe Yoo (Charles Melton), a couple who rose to notoriety when their relationship was exposed decades earlier because she was 36, married with children, and he was 13. They now have three children, two about to graduate high school, with Joe as an X-ray technician and Gracie running a small home-bakery business. As Elizabeth meets with people from Gracie’s past, she begins to better understand these two people, both from the time of the initial incident and now.
I found “May December” to be a profoundly upsetting movie, largely because Hayes, along with writers Samy Burch and Alex Mechanik, refuse to allow this to be a movie that is black and white. Obviously, it is abusive for a 30-something woman to initiate a relationship with a teenage boy, but we are looking at it some 20 years later when they have built a life together. However, even now, we see that there are numerous cracks in their relationship and that despite the years together, the abuse and power imbalance are never addressed.
The performances in this film are stunning. The actors playing the kids are all wonderful, managing to bring a genuine love for their dad with a disdain for their mom that is part teen angst and part anger from being an unwitting part of a national scandal. Watching Moore in this reminded me of her role in “Magnolia” with the energy that she brought. Portman gives a beautifully nuanced portrayal of a woman trying to find a balance between professionalism and friendship. But the most impressive showing comes from Melton, who finds a way to portray naivete without ever succumbing to seeming ignorant.
Aside from the unsettling subject matter, my only frustration with this movie was the score. It is heavy-handed in a way that took me out of the moment more than once. Beyond that, it is a masterful piece of filmmaking.
There is a tendency to treat abuse from older women to young boys with less gravity than we do when the situation is reversed, and this movie tackles that imbalance with a deft hand. This is not a film that is easy to watch, but nevertheless, it is a movie that is worth watching.
ALISE CHAFFINS is a Morgantown writer who loves movies and sharing her opinions, as well as a member of the International Film Society Critics Association. She reviews a movie from a streaming service every Saturday and one newly in theaters every Sunday. Find more at MacGuffin or Meaning on Substack.
