So … what ever happened to that grade school boy who had a sexual relationship with his teacher, anyway? This is -without a doubt- a question you’ve asked yourself many, many times. Todd Haynes and company seem to have an idea. It isn’t pleasant, but then again, not much in this film is besides the freshly painted façade of normal lives.
Gracie (Julianne Moore) and Joe (Charles Melton) receive (literal) packages of shit on a regular basis. Seems peculiar, boxing up a pile of crap and sending it through the postal system. I don’t remember that being on the USPS taboo list – “liquid, perishable, fragile, hazardous…” I suppose “perishable” applies, maybe. When you think about it, it’s probably just easier to order crap from Amazon these days.
It will take you about five or ten minutes to understand why people keep sending shit to Gracie and Joe. They seem nice enough. Of course, I bet they seemed nice enough twenty years ago, too, when 13-year-old Joe started having an affair at the pet store where he and the 36-year-old Gracie worked.
[Feel free to cringe here. I sure did.]
This relationship has found the limelight again as TV actress Elizabeth (Natalie Portman) has come to town to study Gracie for this upcoming portrayal. Elizabeth hopes to find “something true” in this character or this story. What she’s going to find is subtle psychological warfare. Decades of bad press have made Gracie into one of the great passive-aggressive and emotionally manipulative beasts of our time. She sure didn’t leave her husband for a 13-year-old because she doesn’t like control of a situation.
Meanwhile, Joe is his own psychological study. He is a fully grown functioning adult with jobskills and a monarch butterfly wrangling hobby. And yet, psychologically, he remains very much the 13-year-old he was when he and Gracie first met. This becomes very awkward when he tries to relate to any of his three college-aged children. He loves his kids, and yet he is barely able to offer them more than friendship and a ride
back from the mall. The three kids all understand much more quickly than their father that Elizabeth is not there to do the family any favors.
It’s not that much happens in this film. May December is very much a slice-of-life look at some seriously f***ed up people. (A Todd Haynes special!) The more we see of Gracie, the less we like her – and she wasn’t on solid ground to start- the more we see of Joe, the sorrier we feel for him, and the more we see of Elizabeth we understand that she is also damaged, yet not-so-noticeably. There is more than just research and professional curiosity going on in her approach. It’s like she’s a detective who already knows how the crime was committed; she just wants the culprit to confess.
This is definitely a Todd Haynes film. May December is much more an elaboration of psychological grief than a film in which anything, you know, happens. Do you like watching the “I’m more emotionally stable than you” game? I wouldn’t blame you otherwise. It’s not a fun game and these aren’t fun people. Whoever labeled May December a comedy showed a greater sense of humor than the film did. I’m giving May December a pass for some wonderful performances, but that’s it. I won’t be recommending this film to anyone I know.
There once was a lady named Gracie
Who committed a sin most racy
She seduced a child
In her mind, something mild
Soon enough, she heard the words “prima facie”
Rated R, 117 Minutes
Director: Todd Haynes
Writer: Samy Burch, Alex Mechanik (did both of these guys fail a phonetics course?)
Genre: Tabloid psychology
Type of being most likely to enjoy this film: The former 13-year-old boy who had an affair with his teacher
Type of being least likely to enjoy this film: The teacher
