May December Programme Notes

“To perceive Camp in objects and persons is to understand Being-as-Playing-a-Role. It is the farthest extension, in sensibility, of the metaphor of life as theater.”

Susan Sontag, Notes on Camp

The forms and subjects of filmmaker Todd Haynes vary from documentary to melodrama; housewives to rockstars. Whether portraying the lives of pop stars through Barbie dolls (Superstar), showing an average woman’s descent into extreme hypochondria (Safe), or charting the career of a great American rock band (The Velvet Underground), his films show a rich and complex understanding of the roles we all play, and our uneasy awareness of playing that role to an audience – whether as stars or ordinary people.

In his latest film, May December, these themes of role-playing, and the tension between public and private lives, are at the fore. Inspired by the real-life 1990s scandal of Mary Kay Letourneau, the film follows Elizabeth Berry (Natalie Portman), a TV star who is set to play Gracie Atherton-Yoo (Julianne Moore) in an upcoming film about her life. For research, Elizabeth visits the home that Gracie shares with her significantly younger husband Joe (Charles Melton) in suburban Georgia. Their idyllic life together is a far cry from the origins of their relationship, which caused a tabloid sensation when Gracie was found having an affair with 13-year-old Joe.

Over 20 years on from the scandal, Gracie and Joe are an ostensibly normal couple: Gracie has a small bakery business, Joe spends time gardening, and their twins are about to graduate from high school. When Elizabeth arrives at their home – in the same small town where their scandal broke – she finds them setting up a barbecue surrounded by friends, and she’s told how important they are to their local community. But when she introduces herself for the first time, Gracie falters, like she hasn’t yet calibrated herself for outsiders. When Elizabeth passes her a package she found on their doorstep, Gracie opens it to see it filled with excrement. 

As the film continues, and the twisty relationship between the two women develops, these cracks in artifice widen, and more signs of resentment start worming their way inside. Elizabeth ingratiates herself into the family and becomes an unsettling presence, shaking free questions that have long been kept buried. Is Gracie really a beloved presence in the town? Is Joe really happily married to the woman who groomed him? How long have they been playing roles, and who assigned them? Who is watching, and who is in control? Why are they allowing their private life to become public again through Elizabeth’s performance in the film? These questions extend to Elizabeth, whose sense of self is just as shaky as Gracie’s, and who begins to take on her mannerisms and traits beyond what is required for her role.

In a number of key scenes, Haynes uses the classic trope of the mirror to show how the two women’s identities refract and combine, and how they perform these identities. Early in the film, Elizabeth and Gracie sit in a clothing store as Gracie’s daughter tries on graduation dresses. As they speak, they constantly catch themselves in the mirrors, watching themselves talking about their lives, checking their hair and appearance. They are both their own performer and their primary audience – like sitting in a zoom meeting watching your own little square. The similarities in their actions betrays their shared awareness of their existence for the public eye, whether in a role that is chosen (actor) or forced (tabloid subject). Later in the film, they enact a confessional make-up session in front of a mirror, as Gracie teaches Elizabeth how to mimic her through make-up. We aren’t sure if they are looking at each other, or still looking at themselves.

Another role that Elizabeth plays is that of investigator. Like a camp version of Christian Bale’s journalist in Velvet Goldmine or Mark Ruffalo’s defense lawyer in Dark Waters, she arms herself with a reporter’s notebook and gathers evidence about her subject from (ex)-friends, (ex)-family and Gracie herself. Like today’s ‘citizen journalist’ true crime fans, we’re never sure whether she’s committed to her craft or just nosey for juicy details – after one particular dig Gracie spits “how is that relevant?” – a character detail made more amusing by the fact that in the US, May December is distributed by the byword for dubious true crime, Netflix.

In a memorable scene, Elizabeth visits the roadside pet store where Gracie and Joe’s affair began. After snapping some photos of the unremarkable exterior, she asks to see the stockroom where they were caught in the act. She squeezes herself into a doorway and reenacts an imagined tryst, writhing and panting on the ground with great commitment. Is this a form of method acting, or is she channelling a past version of Gracie like a medium? Marcelo Zarvos’ excellent score ramps up the melodramatic strings at the point of enacted climax. Later on, Elizabeth’s attempts to channel Gracie’s erotic experiences with Joe become less hypothetical, more practical. After one such scene, she looks directly at the camera, performing Gracie’s accent and lisp to near perfection, like she’s finally absorbed the last character note that she needs. It’s disturbing, hilarious, absurd. 

Although the twin performances of Portman and Moore are at its centre, the film is rich with supporting performances. Charles Melton is great as Joe, hiding his tragedy beneath a genial himbo persona, and numerous actors add character and eccentricity to roles as bit-players in Gracie and Joe’s whirlwind. The best supporting performance comes from Haynes regular Cory Michael Smith, who almost steals the show as Gracie’s son from her previous marriage. He tips our image of Gracie upside down and back again, packing pathos, cunning, nihilism and empathy into just a handful of scenes. 

Throughout May December, Haynes strikes a remarkable – and discomforting – balance between palpable tension and jet-black humour. We’re wracked with anxiety about where this is all going to go, but there are countless laugh-out-loud moments. It’s a rare case of camp humour being ingrained into a work at its inception: as camp is about perception rather than cultivation, it’s near-impossible to manufacture convincingly. With this magnificent, outrageous film, Todd Haynes proves that he is one of the only filmmakers who can.

Claire Biddles

Film, music and arts writer