When May December starts, this Netflix movie introduces its core premise quite straight-faced. Natalie Portman is an actress who’s visiting married couple Julianne Moore and Charles Melton to do research for a movie, where she’s playing a character based on Moore. Moore had sexual relations with Melton when he was underage and she was an adult, went to jail, came out and married him, and now they have a family, blending their children and Moore’s kids from a previous relationship. At a family party, Moore opens the fridge while a music sting that could be straight out of Dynasty plays, the camera zooms dramatically on her face, and she says, quietly, to no one in particular, “I don’t think we have enough hot dogs.” This is the tone May December wants you to follow – it has truly interesting character dynamics that mirrors certain real-life cases salaciously, and the movie knows that its own existence is kind of trashy, and it’s intentionally playing with the tensions between the two.
I think May December walks this line expertly, and plays its cards with this in mind as the movie goes along. At first, you kind of ignore oddities in Portman’s character, especially when everyone is fawning over her for being so famous. But the more you see her in private, or hear the questions she’s asking, you start to wonder if she’s as kind, respectful and prestigious as she acts.
Similar, the layers around Moore unpeel like an acting onion – and then wrap back up at times. Is she delusional? A manipulator? Just trying to live her life unharried? Does she understand the effect she’s having on other people? And are they on board with it?
Charles Melton is the stand-out for me, even over those two greats, as a man who starts off seemingly so confident in the strength of his life, but the arrival of Portman has suddenly revealed all kinds of cracks he didn’t notice before, or just refused to see, and he’s completely unable to cover them all at once.
The movie has great respect for its characters, which makes the above trifecta so interesting to follow for the whole movie – and then every so often, May December will throw in a line (many of which come from Portman) that’s a haymaker punch to how Hollywood dehumanizes the people involved in an adaptation like this – and saves the final giant right hook for the concept of a movie like… itself.
It was one of the best Netflix movies of last year, in my opinion, and is kind of a daring mix of fun and drama, a lot like some of director Todd Haynes’ other work – especially Velvet Goldmine, which takes the same kind of approach to a David Bowie-like musician.
