Review | Cannes 2023: May December movie review – Natalie Portman, Julianne Moore in Todd Haynes’s gripping age-gap drama
- Julianne Moore plays Gracie Atherton-Yoo, a woman who, at 36, had an affair with a 13-year-old boy. The story scandalised America, but she went on to marry him
- Two decades later, Elizabeth Berry (Natalie Portman) comes to study Moore’s character for a film, in a movie that is a curious tonal mix of melodrama and comedy
3.5/5 stars
In May December, Julianne Moore plays Gracie Atherton-Yoo, a woman who once had an affair with a young teen, Joe. She was 36, he was 13.
They met in a pet store, where they both worked. Gracie was eventually sent to jail, and had their baby behind bars. The tabloids had a field day, but the pair remain together 24 years later, now with three kids.
Scripted by Samy Burch, a former casting director, the film bears loose similarity to a real-life case in America that involved teacher Mary Kay Letourneau who, in 1997, was convicted of two counts of felony second-degree rape of a child, after having sex with a sixth-grade pupil.
In another director’s hands, May December might have been a rather sordid affair, rather like the movie-within-the-movie – which we briefly see a clip from – that has already been made about Gracie’s life.
