'May December' Review: The Netflix Movie That Sideeyes Netflix True Crime

Todd Haynes has made a beautiful, stylish and very funny film for Netflix that shows how inhumane Netflix's true crime content is.

With May and December, Heinz throws out the big bait. At first glance, the thriller written by Sammy Burch looks like a docudrama ripped from the Netflix titles. But with exceptional talent like Haynes ( Carol , Far From Heaven ) and Oscar-winning leading ladies Natalie Portman and Julianne Moore, moviegoers can expect good things from the tabloids. You will get it and more.

Burch and Heinz don't tell a shocking story about power dynamics and abuse disguised as romance. Together with their star-studded cast, they demonstrate a distinct individuality, a ruthless focus on the audience and our unquenchable thirst for real criminal carnage and those who satisfy it.

Is May fond of Mary Kay Letourneau's story?

At a screening of the film at the New York Film Festival, Burch avoided the comparison and joked that she was too young to remember the 1997 scandal. "I'm a little girl," she said shortly, before adding , "All these stories." . Such things are in the ether. They are completely rooted in everyone’s cultural history.”

However, the similarities between Letourneau's story and May's are not trivial. In both cases, a white American woman in her thirties has sex with a seventh-grade boy, is convicted of rape, gives birth to her son in prison, and, after serving her sentence, marries the now-grown boy. However, these similarities are not the purpose of the film.

“May, December” takes place 20 years after Gracie Atherton (Julianne Moore) and Joe Yu (played as adults by Charles Melton) were trapped in a pet store closet. Today they live in a large house where they host barbecues for neighbors and their children, including twins who are graduating from high school. Her life seems pretty peaceful, if you ignore the pile of human crap that shows up on her doorstep and the loud taunts of Gracie's adult son from her first marriage (a snarky one - and rightly so! - Cory Michael Smith). . But this relatively peaceful post-tabloid existence is turned upside down when an actress intervenes to remove provocative art from her life.

Julianne Moore plays an old villain.

Although she talks about finding and loving "morally gray" roles, actress Elizabeth Berry (a smiling Natalie Portman) is best known for her TV series Nora's Ark, about a veterinarian who solves crimes. Famous but far from fantastic, Elizabeth sees the role of Gracie as a role that can change her professional status and make her a provocative and serious actress. Therefore, Elizabeth carefully observes not only how this shameful woman/mother/nation moves and speaks, but also how she skillfully manipulates the people around her.

Don't make mistakes. Although Haynes has told stories of misunderstood lovers in films like "Carol" and "Velvet Goldmine," that's not his goal with "May and December." Julianne Moore, who starred in Haynes' Safe and Far From Heaven , gives Gracie a pretty facade. Dressed in beige and light pink, this evil woman has big eyes, a big smile, and speaks with great love, whether she's loving her children, eating an elaborate cake, or struggling with hate.

But as Elizabeth sees it, Gracie's mischievous manipulations go beyond sugarcoating. While shopping for a ball gown with her teenage daughter Mary (Elizabeth Yeo) - with Elizabeth by her side - Gracie forces the girl to wear a certain dress, tweeting: "You're so brave to show your arms like that." Maryam is shy and chooses a more traditional dress that matches her mother's expectations. Later, behind closed doors, Gracie pressures Joe to do whatever she wants and bursts into tears at the slightest disagreement. But his voice is harder to grasp than those cutting comments or those crocodile tears.

Whether she's talking about her love of trends or her view of the world, Gracie has a strange stutter. It comes and goes, so you may not be able to tell when at first. Some viewers may wonder if Moore has lost track, but this performance is ruthlessly strategic. If Gracie isn't challenged, she goes unnoticed. When she protests her innocence or flashes a smile, her stuttering pronunciation seems to soften her touch, a velvety defiance of her strength of character.

Natalie Portman looks like a cynical Hollywood nightmare.

Elizabeth sees so much of Gracie's seductive, passive-aggressive manipulation that she drinks it like fine wine. As the film progresses, you mimic her movements, mimic her style, and even accompany Gracie through a makeup tutorial. In a way, Portman exemplifies the way Hollywood feigns a noble interest in true crime, presuming to make art out of tragedy over its own human protection. But Elizabeth's interest in Gracie is clearly self-centered, as she invents a role so touching that it takes her out of her boring television. It's a scandal understood as a social ladder, using Gracie's family (and their victims) - many of whom he independently interviews - as a ladder to climb. Elizabeth certainly doesn't care what the Gracie children think about this future film, and she treats Jo not as a person but as an experiment to be investigated.

The cruelty of this psychological distancing becomes increasingly darker as the film progresses, subtly making May Décembre's audience complicit. Elizabeth shyly flirts with Joe to find out what it means to deal with him. Her conversations with an unseen producer range from inappropriate to downright obscene, like when she complains that the child star in her film Seventh Grade isn't "sexy enough." There's a wildness here that Burch brings out in conversation, and Portman underlines it with her slurred speech. Elizabeth is obsessed with the gory details of the case but not emotionally invested. For him everything is far and we can laugh because there is distance for us too.

In it, Hines and Burch decry the true-crime public that craves endless tales of human depravity and movie studios that put out a buffet like Netflix.

May mocks the concept of high-profile true crime.

This film could be lumped in with Netflix's true crime series like Dahmer ; Very evil, extremely evil and despicable ; Anna's invention ; Current boss or woman – Dramas that explore the villain with breathless suspense. But that comparison would do May a disservice, and not just because the inclusion of Elizabeth's novel provides a defense against being "based on true events." Elizabeth's story becomes a focal point that moves from repeating the gruesome details of a true crime to critiquing the genre. In truth, these details are largely hidden from a quick glance at tabloid headlines and a quick conversation around the kitchen table.

Instead, May-December increases the public's fascination with these cases. Elizabeth is our interpreter of the carnival mirror, surviving and investigating the victims' private lives to satisfy their macabre curiosity. He wants to get as close to the criminal as possible and maybe even imagine the emotions of the crime. In a kind of satire, Haynes and Bruch take the story to places where it would and should burden its audience. This is the story not of one predator, but of two. Elizabeth – and everything she represents – is a carrion that feeds on the wounded and dead. When Elizabeth watches Gracie, we watch her.

To Burch's credit, his script is adept at criticizing the cannibalistic nature of Hollywood, where any tragedy can be sold. It also contains elements of '90s erotic thrillers, like a cheesy seduction scene with a deliberately embarrassing ending to make what seems like a rant actually be fun. One could also argue that Burch risks losing the steep edge of those other Netflix properties by giving him a central villain who's flashy and played by a likeable actor . But perhaps it is precisely this risk that makes May and December so exciting, because he actually walks this tightrope courageously and never takes a wrong step.

While other true crime films feature heroic police officers or clever citizen detectives as heroes, May has no heroes. Instead, it is a story of intertwined obsessions, dark and human but not human. Ultimately, there is no comforting title that promises an ending. He will not settle for justice. Without letting up, Haynes leaves behind the painful feeling of an ever-darkening spiral. In this way , May is more honest about true crime than many of Netflix's glossy shows.

The film screened outside of the New York Film Festival in May . It will be released in cinemas on November 17th and on Netflix on December 1st.

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