Within just a few seconds, we’re already off-balance in the new film May December, as we look at a close-up of a monarch butterfly and its surroundings moving in and out of focus, as grand, melodramatic, percussive piano music plays underneath. And this is unquestionably where director Todd Haynes wants us, as he tells the story of a woman who had an affair with a 13-year-old boy and was sent to prison for it, after which she had the boy’s child and then married the boy when he became a man. Now 20 years later, an actor has arrived at their house to study the woman, since the actor will be playing her in a movie about the whole ordeal.
That music is crucial, lifted from the 1971 movie The Go-Between, another film that keeps us off balance. Haynes uses the piece, along with the original score for May December, to keep us always wondering exactly what we should be thinking and feeling about what we’re seeing on screen. At times it ratchets up the drama, at times it makes us wonder if we’re missing some drama that doesn’t appear to be there, and at times it seems wildly incongruous to what’s happening, although eventually we wonder if it might be giving us a peek into the mental state of the characters.
Where and how Haynes places the actors adds to this, too—Julianne Moore plays the woman, Natalie Portman plays the actor, and Haynes occasionally puts them together in front of Moore’s bathroom mirror, a deeply intimate space that Portman has invaded, and we can see as she subtly tries to absorb Moore’s manner and speech, and as Moore may or may not be trying to influence what Portman is taking in.
The two women are astonishingly good here, but at least as good is Charles Melton, who plays the man, who may be the one character without guile. We can see how he physically expresses the parts of himself that are beginning to crack open after being suppressed for decades. He’s an exceptional part of an expertly crafted psychodrama that’s one of the very best movies of the year.
May December is on Netflix December 1st.
