New York Film Festival 2023: MAY DECEMBER

Curiosity is an inherently human instinct. We’re practically trained to expect information upon request, given how often and easily it is made available to us, so when a door is locked, or something is made secret, we clamor for clarity. The juiciest information is even more desirable, and even more exciting when obtained, given how often it is clouded or concealed. But at what point does interest go from being a human behavior to an inhumane practice? And does a gray area exist if there’s a purpose to curiosity, one that goes beyond our own personal intrigue?

These are complicated questions, just two of the many that Todd Haynes’ beguiling, slippery new feature, May December, has on its mind. Additionally, there are questions about the icky three-way intersection of morality, legality, and love; about the damage that is done when one gives in to desire in spite of the consequences it carries; and, perhaps ancillary to all the rest in tenor but not at all in substance, the very concept of proper boundaries. But if there’s one thing to always keep in mind when watching one of Haynes’ films, it’s that there are more important things at hand than the answers to his litany of questions. Oftentimes, the questions don’t have any proper answers at all.

Which, more than likely, will frustrate some viewers, particularly when it comes to May December. At its center is Gracie Atherton (Julianne Moore), who, as a 36-year-old in the early nineties, had a wildly illicit affair with a 13-year-old named Joe Yoo. (The film’s title references a term used to describe relationships where one partner is significantly older than the other.) She went to jail for her part in the relationship, but upon her release, she and Joe (played as an adult by Charles Melton) married. They have three college-aged children, as if it wasn’t already made clear by their present ages that they’ve been together for some time. The outrage that originally marred their romance has cooled somewhat — a friend makes sure to note that they are a “very beloved part of this community” — but that doesn’t make it any less riveting to the outside world.

Enter Natalie Portman’s Elizabeth Berry, an actress whose next role is one she’s determined to get right. She’s been cast to play Gracie in a new film about the scandal, and in order to prepare for the role, she’s been welcomed into the Atherton-Yoo’s home in order to properly prepare for the job. Is this a necessary measure? Perhaps not for some actors, but you get the sense that Elizabeth is itching for this performance to put her on a map larger than that of the soapy dramas and television specials she’s been a part of for much of her career. And though there is ample material in the form of tabloid magazines and enough “Inside Edition” episodes to sour Deborah Norville herself, Gracie, for her part, is plenty enthused to welcome Elizabeth into the Atherton-Yoo’s life. In her words, “I want you to get the story right, don’t I?”

What follows is a discomfiting psychological war primarily between Gracie and Elizabeth, the former of whom quickly begins to tire of the latter’s incessant questions about her past — never mind the fact that she brought it on voluntarily. It’s a conceit that, on its surface, provokes questions of what is right and what is wrong, and whether or not either concept matters when it comes to love. Once again, though, you’ll be out of luck if you expect any concrete answers. Instead, Haynes unspools a thread that doubles as a runaway train careening through the lives of those under his microscope. No director working today can work his way through the most intricate depths of the human psyche the way that Todd Haynes can, and some of his best work comes when he’s operating on a level as catty and campy as this. 

While keeping this in mind, however, don’t underestimate the darkness at its core — and not solely the darkness it promises on paper. Working from a script by longtime casting director Samy Burch, Haynes is sure to remind the audience that despite the external composure his characters seem to maintain, there is a heinous undercurrent beneath each surface. Gracie is quick to criticize her loved ones, often nitpicking as a means to her own broken end; Moore savvily depicts her as a woman on the verge of a nervous breakdown, one who manages to keep up appearances in public despite her inability to refrain from sudden sobs in the comfort of her own Savannah mansion. Elizabeth crosses a number of lines in her investigative research, though if you buy Portman’s persistent, wry grins, you might actually believe that her character genuinely finds her methods ethical — or even cares, as long as they succeed in making the subject of her queries uncomfortable.

It’s Melton, however, who commands the bulk of the film’s emotional weight, turning in a star performance worth its weight in tears shed. The once-hulky ex-Riverdale star gained 40 pounds in order to properly portray the depressed dad that is Joe, a man who fails to find joy in anything aside from tending to his garden, checking on the monarch butterflies Gracie refuses to let him store in practically any room in their house, or secretly texting a fellow monarch lover. Joe will never make a true, dangerous move on this stranger, nor does it seem as though he’ll ever make any sort of move toward independence. Even when he does, he’s met with a glib cutdown, one that he shouldn’t be expected to understand given what his life has represented thus far: “This is just what grown-ups do.”

The way Melton embodies Joe, in all his beer-gut lowliness, often elicited a collection of cringes from the audience, and even a smattering of tears — especially when Joe’s life as he knows it, similar in so many ways now as it was when he was 13, finally comes into focus in a finale that will likely be remembered as one of the finest sequences of Haynes’ already-renowned career. This character, certainly more than any other in this film and perhaps more than any he’s crafted in years, is a layered mess of emotion. And despite Joe’s best efforts, he can’t put up enough of a front to fend off the likes of Elizabeth, eager to unsettle his already fragile stasis. Melton plays him with an appropriate sort of boyish timidness, a man so uncomfortable in his own world that his shoulders stiffen to a permanent hunch whenever he is addressed. He’s a boy in the body of a man, struggling to properly connect with adults, yes, but also his children. In many ways, he remains a child himself. 

Ultimately, May December is not only a stunning battle between distrustful strangers as played by three remarkable performers, but a series of performances from each of the characters themselves. These individualized productions — for one another, for those around them, and for themselves, most of all — help to mask each of their respective realities, until they all inevitably crumble around them in a unique manner for each. It’s a haunting, brilliant meditation on what people should and shouldn’t be allowed to observe and uncover. And, as ever, Haynes is perfectly content to leave plenty of doors unopened. He’d rather leave it to his viewers to sort it out for themselves.