A visit from Hollywood has been announced in Savannah, Georgia, affectionately referred to by the residents as “Slow Vannah”. The world seems to be in order, the Virginia oaks are firmly rooted, the Spanish moss falls down like angel hair, the sun is shining, the grills are steaming, people are waving small national flags in the street. “If she comes, then she should get involved a little bit!” says Gracie (Julianne Moore), who is waiting for the party guest Elizabeth (Natalie Portman), a TV and independent film actress who wants to play Gracie and get to know her beforehand.
Everything is prepared for the visit, husband Joe helps in the kitchen, the children run around the house. But the first of many nervous breakdowns in this film is about to happen: Gracie opens the refrigerator door, a dramatic zoom on her face, two ominously lingering piano chords: “I don’t think we have enough hot dogs!”
The simple interpretation of this scene is: Contrary to appearances, nerves are frayed, the family idyll is precarious. Gracie and Joe’s relationship is about to be dragged into the public eye again. There is a 23-year age difference between them, Joe was 13 when they got together, and Gracie was in prison because of it. The actress, the same age as Gracie then and as Joe is now, will stay for a few days and get to know this unusual family. And she will get involved too – more than Gracie and Joe would like.
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In the first scene, we already got to know Elizabeth as a bad-tempered, sharp observer who is not impressed by the down-to-earth Savannah setting. Her cold, dissecting gaze wants to look into the depths, while Gracie wants to present her with the image of a normal citizen firmly rooted in the community. We are in for a two-hour psychological duel in which the cards are constantly being reshuffled and in which the glaring sunlight of the American South will repeatedly cause the grain of the film material to almost burn through.
There are other layers to this film that further heat things up. The “hotdog meltdown” is already an internet meme, as is Julianne Moore’s childish lisp, which is gradually copied by Natalie Portman. The whole film is full of sharp-tongued one-liners that anticipate the camp reception of this female relationship: “You look much bigger on TV” (Gracie’s opening line), or “That’s what grown-ups do!” (when Elizabeth finally succeeds in seducing Joe).
Mirrors and double levels everywhere
Director Todd Haynes is very familiar with flamboyant portrayals of toxic femininity, and Moore and Portman really do everything they can to put the already heated footage back on the grill. Again and again, the camera takes the position of a mirror in front of which the characters (and the actresses) check their gestures, rehearse their nervous breakdowns, check the effect of their lisped punch lines.
We can watch, we don’t have to identify. After all, Moore’s portrayal of Gracie is also a well-researched interpretation of a real person, Mary Kay Letourneau, on whose story Samy Burch’s multi-layered screenplay is loosely based. Mirrors and double levels everywhere: Todd Haynes quotes the identity theft of the two women in Ingmar Bergman’s “Persona”, the composer Marcelo Sarvos quotes Michel Legrand’s original score for Joseph Losey’s “The Mediator” (1971), in which a 13-year-old boy also becomes the plaything of adults.
You don’t have to know these references to enjoy “May December.” The duel between two colorful characters, played by two terrific actresses with high camp experience, on the edge of a swamp where the high-frequency noises of the crickets are nerve-racking, is more than enough for this method acting party.
With the high tone of the production, in which missing cake orders are pitched up to an identity crisis, in which one learns to think about what husbands smell like who have stood at the grill too long, in which one looks through aquariums and snake enclosures at actresses rehearsing orgasms in pet shops, and in which the music announces disasters when one looks in the refrigerator, Todd Haynes has laid a beautiful egg in film history, from which a dazzling monarch butterfly gradually pupates.
Perhaps the work ends up shooting itself in the foot with its own cleverness and perfect construction, because it doesn’t let us really get into the drama. But modern internet cultures will cut out the best, most poisonous, funniest and most disturbing parts of it and put them into new contexts.