After Priscilla by Sofia Coppola, May December by Todd Haynes is the second annual event marking the return of a cult director. The director of Carol AND Far from paradise here he signs his eleventh film, carried out by a duo of iconic actresses, Julianne Moore and Natalie Portmanwhat a damage May December all its disturbing strangeness.
May December, what is it?
In May December, Natalie Portman plays Elizabeth, a TV star who, for the purpose of a role, travels to Georgia, in search of Gracie Atherton-Yoo, a woman who will have to play in a biopic.
The latter inflamed the press and tabloids twenty years earlier for having had a relationship with Joe, a 13-year-old schoolboy when she was 36.
After serving a long prison sentence, Gracie married Joe once the latter came of age. Together they founded a seemingly happy family…
The problem behind the apparent perfection
The cozy decor of a home in the coastal town of Savannah, in the southern United States. A woman apparently passionate about pastry making, a man obsessed with butterflies. A couple and their children, who seem to have it all the ideal family.
Surface, May December it would almost be a portrait of the American dream. And yet: the discomfort, the discomfort, the perversion are before our eyes. It is also palpable in the film’s title, “May December”, a rather ironic American expression that designates a couple separated by a significant gap, as May and December are in the year.
The film does not hide it: the house of happiness is built on the fire of a scandal, which was then painfully extinguished. winds years, and the years Gracie spent in prison. By evoking a ghost that we cannot get rid of, the event is even more so disturbing for the viewer where Todd Haynes imagined itreally true news : the Mary Kay Letourneau case. In the 1990s we learned that this math teacher had had sexual relations with one of her students, then 12 years old.
In the film, however, it is neither about exploring all the facets of the news, nor about being fascinated by it. Todd Haynes is the exact opposite of the tabloids that had covered the story twenty years earlier.
Through this drama which multiplies the figure of double and mirrorwhat interests the director is rather the question identificationFrom limitation from one woman to another. The more Elizabeth observes Gracie, the more she escapes her…
In front of this actress who takes her role very seriously and flirts with her acting method, we cannot help but be frozen by the impression of seeing this American dream broadcast and repeated endlessly, even if its roots are rotten. Faced with this film, whose contours we do not prefer to reveal too much, we oscillate from question to question, in front of an elusive and disturbing double portrait…
Listen to Apéro des Daronnes, Madmoizelle’s show that aims to break down taboos on parenting.
Source: Madmoizelle
Mary Crossley is an author at “The Fashion Vibes”. She is a seasoned journalist who is dedicated to delivering the latest news to her readers. With a keen sense of what’s important, Mary covers a wide range of topics, from politics to lifestyle and everything in between.
