Throughout motion picture history, there have been strong creative partnerships involving an actress and her director. The inspiration for the filmmaking artist is almost always the actress, the muse if you will.
Diane Keaton starred as the lead in six films for director Woody Allen, including the seminal “Annie Hall,” for which she received an Academy Award for best actress. Keaton also has a cameo in Allen’s “Radio Days” and acted alongside him in “Play It Again, Sam” for which he wrote the screenplay based on his own hit Broadway play, although Allen didn’t direct the movie.
Katharine Hepburn made ten films with director George Cukor. Marlene Dietrich starred in six features for Josef von Sternberg. Actress Cybill Shepherd was in three movies directed by Peter Bogdanovich. Silent screen legend Lillian Gish acted in dozens of short films for D. W. Griffith and delivered essential characterizations in a number of his features, including “Orphans Of The Storm,” “Way Down East” and “Broken Blossoms.”
Currently, filmmaker Todd Haynes and actress Julianne Moore have been working together for more than two decades. He has a deep understanding of the secrets of American suburban life, and she has an extraordinary talent for playing complicated women, who are leading lives that on the surface seem ordinary, but in reality are far from mundane.
“May December,” which is on Netflix, is their new mutual showcase, and it follows their collaborations on “Safe,” “Far From Heaven,” “I’m Not There” and “Wonderstruck.”
Moore plays Gracie, a woman for whom the American dream has been turned upside-down. She lives in Savannah, Georgia with her husband Joe (Charles Melton) and their three children, one of whom goes to college. The film, which takes place in 2015, begins with a happy idyll out of a memory book. Gracie and Joe are having a backyard barbecue for friends and neighbors. The rhythms of a typical family are front and center.
At the same time, an actress named Elizabeth Berry (Natalie Portman), who is well-known for her appearances on television, is making her way to the house where Gracie and Joe have made a quiet and comfortable life for themselves. Elizabeth is in Savannah to do research. She is going to play Gracie in a movie. Gracie has granted Elizabeth access to her home for a few days. Both are hoping that an independent film about her will help rehabilitate her in the eyes of much of the public.
Gracie wants to set the record straight. A previous television program was scandalous. The tabloid press has always had a field day with her tarnished reputation. What did she do?
Gracie, who was 36 at the time, became an international sensation after she was caught having sex with a 13-year-old boy in the stock room of a pet store where she worked. She served a prison sentence during which she gave birth to a child. However, the relationship continued, and that boy is now her 36-year-old husband Joe. Their house was paid for with a check from a true crime television show.
The program didn’t sit well with Gracie and Joe. Their desire to have a fictionalized version of their story on-screen is just one interesting layer of Samy Burch’s darkly satirical screenplay. What she does with her script is to flip reality on its head. One example is how the townspeople seem more fascinated than repulsed by Gracie’s act those many years ago, especially because of the arrival of a famous actress. Certainly people have secret thoughts and hushed opinions, but you can always count on average folks to become starstruck, especially with a beautiful actress. And they will almost always be unfailingly polite, if occasionally goofy.
Director Haynes is brilliant at taking the ordinary and isolating its importance. Scenes that seem relaxed at first suddenly become tense and unnerving. Are Gracie and Joe having regrets about agreeing to let the film be made? Has Joe forgotten a number of truisms on purpose or is he trapped by fame?
Ordinary things become amplified. Gracie has always baked cakes to earn extra money. But, what does that really mean to her? She takes Elizabeth to a flower arranging class, which is a visual and linear metaphor of monumental proportions. Joe raises butterflies, which are a true symbol of change. Elizabeth being an actress implies being two-faced.
A shadow descends over the relationship between Gracie and Joe. The making of the movie causes dissent. Elizabeth’s behavior becomes alarming. After all, she is quite knowledgable about the art of deception. Is she also a strange and forceful form of predator? What is she seeing in Gracie? How is she interpreting things? Years after Gracie manipulated Joe into having sex with her, is she still controlling him? Where will Elizabeth’s selfishness take the story?
Director Haynes builds “May December” like a superbly crafted puzzle. Moore and Portman are both outstanding. They are mesmerizing as their scenes together draw the audience into thinking about possibly dangerous psychological traps. Their characters circle each other like fighters in a ring. There is growing tension. They each have a lot to loose: Gracie her life with Joe and Elizabeth a resurgence of her fading acting career. Melton, whose character speaks his mind with quiet assurance, is Oscar-worthy as Joe.
The main supporting cast, including Elizabeth Yu and Gabriel Chung as Gracie and Joe’s twin children, Cory Michael Smith as Gracie’s oldest son Georgie, and D.W. Moffett as Gracie’s ex-husband Tom, are all outstanding. The film has beautifully atmospheric cinematography from Christopher Blauvelt and strong production values.
In “May December,” Haynes, Burch, Moore, and Portman have created an alluring tale of the dark, unforeseen shallows of life. Gracie and Joe could have let well-enough alone. They didn’t.