Review by
Eric Hillis
Directed by: Todd Haynes
Starring: Natalie Portman, Julianne Moore, Charles
Melton, D. W. Moffett, Piper Curda, Cory Michael Smith
Those of us accustomed to Todd Haynes' flair for melodrama were
taken aback by his most recent film,
Dark Waters. That film, which dealt with the poisoning of a small community by an
uncaring corporation, was a very grounded drama with none of the knowing
campiness we associate with the director. Given it revolves around very
troubling subject matter, you might expect Haynes to have continued this
approach with May December, so it's a surprise to find it's one of his campiest and snarkiest
works to date. Think Persona, if Bergman had cast Bette Davis and Joan Crawford in the central
roles.
Haynes is reunited with his muse, Julianne Moore, who plays
Gracie, a fifty-something woman who became a tabloid sensation while in
her thirties for an affair with a 13-year-old boy which resulted in her
giving birth to the boy's child. The real tabloid meat came when she was
released from a prison sentence and went on to marry her victim, Joe (Charles Melton), who is now in his mid-thirties and has fathered a set of teenage
twins with Gracie. Aside from receiving the occasional parcel of faeces
in the mail, Gracie and Joe seem to live a relatively normal and content
life in middle class suburban Georgia.
Things start to unravel for the couple when they allow TV star
Elizabeth (Natalie Portman) to spend some time in their company
as she researches a movie based on their scandal, with her in the role
of Gracie. It's clear that Gracie is uncomfortable with the idea, but
she seems to hope she can influence Elizabeth towards a sympathetic
portrayal. The actress assures her that this is her intention, but as we
watch her mimic Gracie and mine her friends and acquaintances for
gossip, it becomes clear that Elizabeth's portrayal will lean towards
the melodramatic, as though she were researching for the role in a Todd
Haynes movie herself.
Haynes heavily apes the sort of TV movies that feature subjects like
Gracie, with an over-the-top score that turns small details into grand
gestures. Portman and Moore deliver disparately wicked turns, the former
vampy and seductive, like a sexy Disney villain, the latter calm and
manipulative, as though she were based on the image of Mia Farrow as
portrayed by her estranged non-white children (a scene in which Gracie
passive aggressively abuses her half-Asian daughter could have come
straight from the Farrow household if you believe the rumours).
When Mia Farrow seduced the married musician Andre Previn, his
singer-songwriter wife Dory wrote a song entitled 'Beware of Young
Girls' in which she detailed how she was befriended and ultimately
betrayed by Farrow. Gracie fails to heed Dory's warning, allowing
Elizabeth the opportunity to begin a campaign of seduction of her
husband. Haynes keeps it ambiguous as to whether Elizabeth is genuinely
interested in Joe or is taking her method acting a little too far.
Elizabeth's immersion in the character of Gracie certainly appears to
have a sinister effect, with her bemoaning the casting director's choice
of pubescent boys for the role of Joe as not being "sexy" enough.
I know I'm in the minority but I find Portman one of the most
uninteresting actresses working in mainstream cinema. She's either a
non-presence or she's hamming it up. Haynes wisely allows her to lean
into the latter, and the star throws herself enthusiastically into the
role of an actress who seems as unhinged as the woman she's portraying.
A scene in which Elizabeth addresses a classroom with a wildly
inappropriate confession of how turned on she gets while shooting sex
scenes might be the highlight of Portman's career.
Moore is less well served. Her cunning yet neurotic character doesn't
get enough screen time to give us any real sense of her inner workings,
and she's reduced to a few ticks and crazy lady tropes. To bluntly
reinforce his victimhood, Joe is portrayed as such an innocent and
stunted man-child that it's difficult to accept him holding down his job
as a doctor or functioning in any adult capacity. The couple's three
children are barely present. Haynes seems to have no real interest in
exploring this most peculiar family dynamic, which is a shame as it's
potentially far more interesting than the broad psychodrama he instead
focusses on.
The catty frisson between Portman and Moore is enough to keep us
superficially hooked, but we're left wondering if Haynes has bluffed an
opportunity to interrogate one of the great taboos. The whole setup
never quite convinces largely because of its American setting. Would
Gracie and Joe really be accepted by a community in a Southern American
state, not known for being the most liberal part of the world? Much of
the film feels like a remake of a European film that has failed to
translate once its story crossed the Atlantic.
