MAY DECEMBER

"It's strange, even after everything she did, and how public it was, she doesn't seem to carry around any shame or guilt." - Elizabeth Berry

May December opens on a beautiful afternoon. Gracie Atherton-Yoo (Julianne Moore) prepares for a summer barbecue as children scream running through the house and her husband Joe cooks hot dogs on a grill. The glossy, overexposed camera style provides a dream-like scenario into this Stepford wife encased neighborhood. Director Todd Haynes is a natural at insinuating perfection while insidiously hinting at the grotesque. A sharp musical crescendo pulses as these nuclear family wannabees apprehensively greet Elizabeth Berry (Natalie Portman), a famous actress portraying Gracie in some new film project, with a package she snagged off their front porch. Gracie accurately surmised the box contains dog shit, admitting this type of delinquency has become more infrequent, all while friends of the Yoo’s convey how lovely, caring, and absurdly normal they are. As Elizabeth wanders the backyard and observes, she becomes surrogate eyes for the audience as the facade of perfectionism overfloweth. Minor somber details shine through in Mr. Yoo’s demeanor, in Mrs. Atherton-Yoo’s nonchalance, in Rhonda’s protective rhetoric over her friend Gracie. Haynes does an incredible job cementing the portrait of familial idealism, while also entrusting Elizabeth, and by extension us, to exploit the cracks he’s unsanctimoniously hidden. 

Like a moth drawn to light, the truth arises. Apparently, Gracie and Joe dine with scrutiny every morning. Revealed on old tabloid front pages, Gracie had an affair with a coworker twenty years ago, who happened to be a 12 year old Joe Yoo (Charles Melton). The scandal made national news when Gracie, then incarcerated, decided to have their child behind bars. Upon her release after serving her time, Gracie and Joe married, had two more children, and moved into a house in Savannah, Georgia. Haynes keeps the bubblegum wrapped, rose-tinted family portrayal intact even after the bombshell drops. Not only is Gracie striving to put forth the image of prosperity, the neighborhood is too. In addition to seemingly protective friends, describing her as ‘lovely’ and ‘full of light,’ her bakery business is only afloat because the same list of people continue to order from her, Gracie’s lawyer humorously contemplating how many pineapple upside down cakes one family can eat. To keep this charade at full capacity, to tighten the screws of this woman’s delusion, her community rallies to keep her business and well-being protected. The question Haynes provides for us is simple: why?  

Horror and nightmarish sexual assault presents itself parceled with a sparkling bow, hidden behind layers of a family that, for all intents and purposes, seems happy. The film trudges up an understanding of wrongness paralleled with an emboldening sense of curiosity. Elizabeth mirrors this intrigue, and slowly starts to assimilate herself into the family’s daily lives. Hesitant at first, Elizabeth trepidatiously voices her questions and opinions under the guise of inspiration, promising Gracie a truthful portrayal. Her desire for information and method acting antics drives her to the pet store custodial closet the couple was first discovered in, and Elizabeth pleasures herself on the floor. Even-so-much as calling her director after watching the audition tapes for her possible thirteen year old co-star and claiming none of them are ‘sexy enough.’ 

Over subtly varying degrees, Elizabeth starts to embody Gracie. Her mannerisms, her open mouth pout, the way her southern twang gives way to a slight lisp, even to her wardrobe and lipstick color, Elizabeth consumes her subject just like Gracie did to her own prey twenty years before. Haynes utilizes mirrors as symbols of transformation through his camerawork. Gracie and Elizabeth start to mirror each other, assessing the other’s desires and motivations. These sort of interrogation scenes, mostly shot through the reflections of mirrors, expose both women wholly to each other and the audience. All accumulating to a deadpan monologue, a recited old love note that adult Gracie once gave underage Joe, that Portman delivers with chilling execution. Portman bestows a sense of remorse and guilt as she becomes Gracie, a humanizing attribute the predator prides herself on ignoring. Despite an admission of legal persecution and loveless marriage with her current husband, the most harrowing takeaway is Portman’s interpreted declaration of innocence. Gracie fully believed then, as she still does now, that her love with a child was real and outmaneuvered any legal or social ramifications. Call it dedication to the role, call it insanity, call it jealousy, the actor took advantage of the wife, laying claim to her husband and her kingdom in the name of justice or her own twisted self interest. 

Elizabeth’s performative nature is quintessential to Haynes’ entire commentary as every central character is hiding behind a disguise and executing their own song and dance; Elizabeth’s being quite literal as an actress, but Gracie’s performance is far more nuanced. Moore personifies an unbothered woman, resilient through social damnation and the realm of public opinion. However, in her second round of marriage, Moore infantilizes Gracie. A psychologically avoidant  response can be seen in the way she breaks down when bakery orders are canceled and her child-like mannerisms and cooing with Joe. It feels as though adult Gracie and adolescent Joe switched roles, allowing Gracie to revert back to her own form of innocence. And with her family and community enabling this blameless lifestyle, including her son Georgie who claimed estrangement from his mother but lied about her own childhood trauma for unknown reasons, Moore creates a morally corrupt wife playing doll-house and embraces her self-imposed absolution.   

In the beginning, Joe’s position and opinions remain unknown as we get to know this modern-day Brady bunch. However, if you look closely at Melton’s restraint and deflation, you see he is the perfect portrayal of stolen innocence. Melton’s physical acting is superb; subtle, concave shoulders and a quiet, demure presence reveals his allowance of Gracie to call the shots and paint the picture of familial bliss for the both of them. But as the film progresses and the cracks begin to show, we see how truly affected Joe was by Gracie’s influence. He admits to never smoking weed during a heart to heart with his son. He pleads in ragged breaths to Gracie about how they never talk about and process how young he was when they first got together. He sobs at his children’s graduation because he never participated in one. Melton molds himself into a heartbreakingly abused thirty-six year old that may have remained that fourteen year old kid for the last twenty years. Joe lives in a world designed to support, nurture, and delude his assaulter, trapping him in a withering state of false maturity. The horror Haynes presents registers as Joe’s mask slips, uncovering a broken child with no one attempting to save him. Melton shrinks into a tragic husband with a stunted soul and his devastating performance elevates the film ten fold. 

Humans gravitate towards the macabre. Scandal fuels dinner table conversations. Haynes exploited this and the inner workings of the Yoo family and fed the masses depravity masked as high-brow art. May December questions the integrity of human curiosity and interest swathed in a shimmering reflection of concealed individuality. Joe’s pastime of Monarch butterfly rehabilitation played a small role while representing so much. As he delicately tends to his arthropods and lovingly explains his feeding process, their cages reflect Joe’s own and their ability to grow and flourish counter his own desire to.