Snatched from salacious tabloids of 1997 through the early 2000s and “tactfully” recalibrated for Netflix, “May December” stars Academy Award winners Natalie Portman, Julianne Moore, and “Crazy Rich Asians” star Charles Melton.
This movie is getting all kinds of Rotten Tomatoes love from critics and audiences alike, but I’m not joining that party for a couple of reasons: One, I find the subject matter depressing, and two—this is an R-rated movie that’s got a couple of seconds that really should have landed it in X-rated territory.
The True, Sordid Back Story
“May December” is loosely based on the true story of Mary Kay Letourneau, a middle-school teacher at Shorewood Elementary in Burien, Washington. Letourneau was convicted on two counts of second-degree rape of a child, based on her abuse of her then 12-year-old student, Vili Fualaau. Letourneau taught Fualaau in second grade, and again in sixth grade, when the abuse started.Letourneau pled guilty when she was arrested in ‘97. She also gave birth to Fualaau’s daughter while awaiting sentencing. She then served three months in the county jail, was forbidden from contacting Fualaau, and any of her five children. Or any other child under 18, for that matter.
Letourneau and Fualaau continued their relationship, however, which landed her back in jail for a second time in ‘98, where she learned, once again, that she was pregnant with a second child by Fualaau. She did two years in the slammer, but kept in contact with Fualaau the entire time, which earned her a stint in solitary confinement.
In August, ‘04, Letourneau was released from prison, and registered as a sex offender. But in May ’05, Letourneau and Fualaau got married.
The Movie
This is Todd Haynes’s first return to feature films since 2019’s excellent “Dark Waters,” and reunites Haynes with his frequent muse Julianne Moore.
The storytelling device is that famous actress Elizabeth Barry (Natalie Portman) is doing research for her portrayal of real-life character Gracie Atherton-Yoo (Moore) for an upcoming independent biopic.
We find out that Gracie was part of a scandal that made headlines two decades earlier when she, in her mid-30s at the time, was caught in flagrante delicto with 13-year-old Joe Yoo, in a pet store.
The older Joe (Melton) is now 36, and appears to be living his best life, married with children, to Gracie. Elizabeth spends time getting to know Gracie, observing her traits, mannerisms, speech patterns and lisp, cooking recipes, how she wears her hair, applies her makeup, and her daily routines. She takes copious notes and practices postures in the mirror.
Joe, the Boy
Haynes chose not to show Gracie and Joe having sex, probably because that would make us all privy to, and besmirch us with—pedophile voyeurism. However, some sex is shown, and as mentioned at the outset, subtly crosses a line that separates R from X, and that’s all I’ll say about it. I will say that it hastens the film’s slide towards where we all know it’s eventually headed, which is no-holds-barred triple-X territory.
Haynes is more interested in depicting the aftermath of Gracie and Joe’s post-scandal married-with-kids life, and how Elizabeth’s method-acting technique ends up becoming a relationship monkey wrench.
“May December” has obviously got fine performances from perennial A-lister’s Moore and Portman, but it’s Charles Melton (who plays Reggie in TV’s “Riverdale”) who steals the show.
We see him as a physically mature male but still inwardly immature. Gracie stole his life and his manhood; he’s clueless as to how to be a man, because he isn’t one. He’s been groomed since the second grade by a virulent narcissist. He’s a hollowed-out Pinocchio, who was never able to access his God-given right—the transition from boyhood into manhood—or take the necessary Hero’s Journey that leads to self-discovery and life purpose.
Melton’s portrayal of Joe’s inner struggle slowly seeps throughout the film, and seeing the entire movie through his eyes would really have been the way to tell this story powerfully. Yet by the time Joe finally begins to consciously wake up to his victim status, Gracie is allowed to continue on with her life, unchanged, with everything to her liking.
Overall
This fact makes the film’s motive unclear. What’s the message here? This relationship wasn’t just taboo; it was out-and-out criminal. Todd Haynes’s direction swims in moral ambiguity. And whereas it’s billed as a dark comedy, there’s just nothing comedic about it.Meanwhile, it doesn’t dig deep enough and therefore lacks the emotional depth for it to be a heart-rending drama with a correspondingly gravitas-laden moral. After all, the title “May December” refers to two people with an age gap, and you really can’t refer to a 36-year-old woman having sex with a 12-year-old boy as a mere age gap.
I feel the popular phrase, “Jeffrey Epstein didn’t kill himself,” pertains, in this case, to the spirit of Epstein managing to live on in Hollywood. Natalie Portman’s early career featured two movies with a strong pedophile vibe to them: “Leon the Professional” and “Beautiful Girls.” “May December” feels like Hollywood’s continuing attempt to normalize this particular aspect of society’s moral downslide.
