NEW YORK (OSV News) – Can lasting happiness be built on a foundation of reckless immorality? That’s the essential question posed by the intense drama “May December” (Netflix).
Director Todd Haynes’ vaguely fact-based look at age-inappropriate romance mostly avoids the kind of exploitation it implicitly satirizes. Yet both its basic premise and a needlessly explicit bedroom encounter make his production suitable for few.
Back in the 1990s, a nationwide scandal erupted after 36-year-old Savannah, Ga., pet shop manager Gracie Atherton (Julianne Moore) was caught in flagrante with 13-year-old student Joe Yoo (Charles Melton), a fellow employee at the emporium. Although Gracie went to prison for her offense, the two not only married but had three children together.
Flash forward to 2015 and celebrated actress Elizabeth Berry (Natalie Portman) arrives in town to spend some time with the apparently stable family as she prepares to play Gracie in a movie. As she stirs up old memories, screenwriter Samy Burch’s script provides no definitive answers about the central bond but gives glimpses into the personalities behind the seamy headlines.
Propelled by top-flight performances, the proceedings abound in uncomfortable moments. Gracie is revealed to be manipulative and self-centered, Joe remains childlike in a disturbing way and Elizabeth revels in imagining herself in Gracie’s long-ago situation of plucking forbidden fruit.
Lurking in the background of the story is the odd reality that such cases as that of Washington state teacher Mary Kay Letourneau seem to evoke an entirely different public reaction than would a similar situation linking an adult male and an underage girl. Viewed objectively from the perspective of biblical morality, of course, both circumstances are equally sinful.
Grown viewers may appreciate the oblique approach Haynes and his collaborators adopt in exploring a potentially explosive topic – as well as the psychological insights their work yields. But those in search of undemanding diversion should look elsewhere.
The film contains a graphic scene of adultery with rear male nudity, drug use, mature references, including to incest, a couple of profanities, about a half-dozen instances each of milder swearing and rough language, occasional crude and crass talk. The OSV News classification is L — limited adult audience, films whose problematic content many adults would find troubling. The Motion Picture Association rating is R — restricted. Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian.
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