Directing: A-
Acting: A
Writing: A
Cinematography: A-
Editing: A
Music: B-

I feel like I should watch May December four more times before I can make a truly definitive statement regarding my opinion of it. But, well, I have other things to do so I’m writing the review now.

How often is the average viewer going to watch it, anyway? Critics can watch movies over and over to gain clarity on their perceptions of them, but that won’t change the average viewer’s experience of it. Most people who watch this movie are only ever going to see it once. Well, I can tell you: this movie might throw you for a loop. It might stun you. It might make you deeply uncomfortable. It might fascinate you on concurrent, multiple levels. It did all of the above to me.

Making a movie clearly inspired by the Mary Kay Letourneau story—which I completely forgot occurred right here in the Seattle area (Burien, to be specific, in 1996)—would be one thing. Todd Haynes, the visionary director behind such masterpieces as Far From Heaven (2002) and Carol (2015), compounds the complexity by making a movie about an actress researching a role in which she plays the woman who had an affair with a middle school-aged boy.

It should be noted that there are many key differences between Latourneau and Gracie, the older woman here played magnificently by Julianne Moore (here being directed by Todd Haynes for the fifth time). The most curious, perhaps, is that Latourneau had her affair with Vili Fualaau when he was 12 years old, but Gracie’s affair with Joe (a remarkable Charles Melton) when he was 13—23 years before the setting of the film. I can’t quite decide what to make of this difference. Does making the kid a legit teenager rather than a preteen somehow make the story more palatable? I can’t say it does: Elizabeth, the actress (an astonishing Natalie Portman), complains to her director about how the 13-year-old boys auditioning for the part aren’t “sexy enough,” and we rightly feel a little gross. Later we see a card Joe made for Grace around the time of their so-called “affair” (I hesitate even to call it that), and I cringed so hard I nearly felt like throwing up.

As it happens, Mary Kay Letourneau and Vili Fualaau separated after 14 years of marriage. Steve Letourneau, Mary Kay’s ex-husband, moved to Alaska with the four children, of which he was awarded custody—all perfectly sensible. In May December, evidently to make things far more awkward, Gracie’s older children and ex-husband all still live in the same town, in this case Savannah, Georgia. This way they can all run into each other at a restaurant the night before Gracie’s twins as well as one of her grandchildren are graduating from high school.

Another key difference: in May December, Gracie and Joe are still married, now more than twenty years, Joe at the age of 36 and Gracie at 59. This is a film that examines the psyche of the people involved in this wildly unusual, deeply unhealthy scenario. There is so much to unpack in this movie, it’s difficult to know even where to start. If you have sexual abuse in your childhood, some of this could be triggering.

The wildest thing about this movie, of course, is that the premise is not just plausible—this has actually happened. How would May December play if the Mary Kay Letourneau story had never happened? Would it feel like too much of a stretch, a test of suspension of disbelief? The only reason this movie exists, of course, is Letourneau—it’s impossible to discuss the film without discussing her. And, just as Elizabeth tries to find ways to understand and empathize with how these people made the decisions they made, we find ourselves making the same exploration, through her.

The stealth surprise of May December is that Elizabeth, as it happens, is just as fucked up as anyone else in this movie. There’s a subtle narrative thread here, touching on the salacious fascination we have with sensationalized stories like this. Natalie Portman is absolutely incredible in this role, as a woman overstaying her welcome as she “researches” the role, taking the task to new and dangerous places, fucking with the stability of people already existing in precarious emotional spaces. Elizabeth engages in her own sort of grooming, gaining the trust of people she is ultimately just using for the purpose of serving her onscren performance. (One of many fantastic touches is how Julianne Moore plays Gracie with a slight lisp, and when we later see Elizabeth playing her, she really leans into that lisp.)

Gracie’s younger children are surprisingly well put together, but the eldest from the previous marriage, Georgie (Cory Michael Smith), is understandably a bit unstable. Everyone in Gracie’s orbit has a different way of dealing with such truly unique circumstances, which compels people to mail literal shit in a box to their house. Gracie herself, while prone to sobbing breakdowns due to endless, barely covert judgment in her community, is fascinatingly unrepentant. She remains steadfast even in the face of Joe coming to an unusually existential moment: is it possible he was too young to be making these kinds of decisons? “You seduced me,” Gracie says to him—a horrid line I’m not sure I will ever forget.

It occurs to me, suddenly, that I easily empathize with everyone in this movie, except for the two leads. Gracie declares herself “naive,” which is perhaps true, but in a way that masks a kind of sociopathy. Elizabeth is eager to understand where Gracie is coming from, but in ways that ultimately only serve her narcissism. There is something deeply wrong with both of these women.

There’s a lot that really got under my skin in May December—but in all the right ways. There’s something about the delivery, particularly in the beginning, that feels almost unnecessarily overwrought, and then somehow it clicks and really works. If I had any complaint, it would be about the score, by Marcelo Zarvos, which is incongruously melodramatic. These jarring piano cords will ring out in even the most otherwise quietly performed scenes. I can see what Haynes we going for, but it never quite worked for me.

That said, I have a strong feeling I could change my mind about the score upon repeat viewings. I remain unconvinced as to whether that’s really relevant, though. Even after one viewing, even accounting for intrusive music, May December is a film I will be thinking about for a long time to come. It has far more to unpack than I even managed to cover here, making it a treasure trove of discomfort.

*Either you’re Haynes Hive or you aren’t. Count me all in.*

Overall: A-