May December
Intriguing melodrama by Todd Haynes (Carol) about an actress who, in preparation for her next role, intrudes into the life of a teacher who began a relationship with a 13-year-old student. With Julianne Moore and Natalie Portman.
Twenty years after their notorious tabloid romance gripped the nation, Gracie and her husband Joe (twenty-three years her junior) brace themselves for their twins to graduate from high school. When Hollywood actress Elizabeth Berry comes to spend time with the family to better understand Gracie, who she will be playing in a film, family dynamics unravel under the pressure of the outside gaze. Joe, never having processed what happened in his youth, starts to confront the reality of life as an empty-nester at thirty-six. As Elizabeth tries to get closer to the couple, the uncomfortable facts of Gracie and Joe’s relationship are exposed. Is their marriage based on romance, or abuse?
For MAY DECEMBER, Todd Haynes reunites with Julianne Moore, with whom he previously made SAFE (1995) and FAR FROM HEAVEN (2002). The film dissects our obsession with celebrity and the tabloids’ sensationalism, and shows the difficulties (or impossibility) of fully understanding another person.