“May December” Review: A Knowing Mystery
May December delights in our every day delusions.
Haynes has a particular interest in our everyday facades. The melodrama that comes from abiding to social norms. The appearances we wear for our own protection. The identities we take on for validation from others. Haynes latest film May December is another installment in his voyeuristic filmography, and perhaps his most intriguing to date. From the moment the camera rolls, the audience is met with questions intentionally and carefully crafted by the director’s sleight of hand. The soft lighting is just one example of Haynes' delicate directorial touches that add to the film’s themes. If May December should be remembered for anything…well, actually, that’s too difficult to decide. Just as I found myself getting lost in the film’s equally entertaining and sickening layers of complex character dynamics, I cannot ground myself in the film’s collective quality. I would say the cinematography is the biggest standout, but when analyzing why, I am reminded of how nuanced the themes are by way of recognizing the stand out visual storytelling. Of course, delving into the themes ties directly to character, as it does for any quality narrative. But I can’t even begin to think about the nuanced characters without addressing how every actor’s performance amplifies their respective character’s depth, which then calls attention to the dialogue’s strength, and so on and so forth. Meaning, May December is layered, delightfully so, in narrative, its themes, and formal elements worthy of praise. Just as much as it is an engaging melodrama, Haynes crafted this film to be a mystery the audience wants to solve. The cinematic construction is so unified in its message, and so effective at exploring its themes with graceful nuance, that the viewer cannot help but want to be carried away by the film and its myriad cast of monsters dressed as suburbanites. By the end of the film one may think they have removed these character’s masks to have seen into their souls, only for May December to deliver its final message with knowing perfection: there is always another layer of deception in front of a practiced smile.
The film begins by narrativizing this theme, demonstrating the level of intention behind every element of its construction. We open on two parallel stories: Elizabeth Berry (Natalie Portman), a famous actress, arrives at a mansion so pristine it had to be captured in one of Haynes’ gorgeous wide shots to contain its overwhelming beauty. Cut to a static medium of the empty living room. Elizabeth walks inside, but we only hear her disappointed voice. “It’s…quaint.” But a few minutes and half a protagonist in and May December already demonstrates its holistic filmmaking. A movie centered around voyeurism, perception, and identity would keep the camera still, waiting for characters to enter the frame, to replicate the feeling of staring. It is as if the camera is frozen out of fear of being detected, the same way an audience member feels when placed in an uncanny angle. Off-kilter framing also creates an immediate unease that persists throughout the film’s runtime, a tone that always builds and never fails to keep the audience on the edge of anxious intrigue. The aforementioned outstanding wide shot is undeniably beautiful, purposefully so to have Portman’s delivery of that stellar line call attention to Elizabeth’s bratty characterization. Dialogue works with cinematography and performance to establish theme and tone in a matter of a few shots.
The other is Gracie Atherton (Julianne Moore), Elizabeth’s twisted target and defamed teacher for having an affair with one of her middle school students decades past. Now, she lives a perfect life. In fact, their idyllic house on the lake is in the midst of hosting a barbeque when we meet the perfect housewife and her husband, the much younger, much quieter, Joe (Charles Melton). As with Elizabeth’s introduction, Gracie’s scene is economic filmmaking at its finest. The audience is immediately presented with conflict when Gracie says “I just hope she isn’t…stuck up,” the film having knowingly just shown Elizabeth disappointed with a house worth millions. However, like many lines in the film, this one has more than one meaning. Just as it calls attention to Elizabeth’s pretentiousness, it highlights Gracie’s inherent contradiction: she is so lost in her facade that she cannot even recognize her own naivety, her own self-ensnarement in this identity she crafted for herself. The community loves her, her family loves her, all because she makes it so. From her introduction, Gracie is so human she turns robotic, so nice that her coldness freezes that much more, so glued to her mask that she is unaware when she is and is not donning it. This is a woman void of identity who has spent her life stripping others of theirs. Or, at least, that’s how she comes off.
Again, this is scene one.
The rest of the film follows the two characters as Elizabeth plays detective. She slowly intrudes on Gracie’s life, with the obsession becoming as unsettling as the woman she is playing. The voyeuristic cinematography presents everyday life as a permanent theater, fitting for these characters who are never able to let down their guard. A myriad of established techniques are used to create this uniquely unnerving visual style that blends comfort and unease into an uncanny world. Unbalanced frames and intentional blocking to generate unease, awkward high angles to invoke voyeurism, deep wides to showcase the omnipresent community and its watchful members, soft lighting that makes life look like a permanent movie; the visuals convey the story as much as the words, and when used in tandem as well as they are here, the thematic web becomes impenetrable.
Evoking the sense of being watched by an ever present crowd, other cinematic elements work to place the audience in the watched eye of Elizabeth and Gracie. A strong soundscape is used to imply never ending off screen presence, as well as deep focus shots to highlight background characters we never meet, and that the film never cares to explain. A stranger’s dentist coincidentally enters a restaurant, one of Joe’s children brings a friend over and we never learn their name. There is an attention to detail that creates a believable world of eternal viewers, thus continuing the pattern of unified, holistic filmmaking. Sound and visuals are used to both amplify and visualize the story and its themes.
Besides the rich and thematically significant sound effects, the score is also informative on the film’s tone. In Gracie’s introductory scene, the camera crash zooms on a profile as the dramatic score swells. “I don’t think we have enough hot dogs…” she whispered to everyone and no one. May December, while by no means a comedy, is unafraid to deviate from its serious presentation. This playful touch adds to the film’s uncanny nature and satirical overtones, creating another layer of knowing subtext to the already nuanced web of ideas and themes the film manages to weave.
And there is even more subtext to read into the main characters and their performances. Each of our leads are written to be just…off enough to invite intrigue. Joe says he’s fine, but that boyish demeanor reflects a permanent middle schooler. Gracie calls her daughter “brave” for showing off her arms, a condescending comment that reflects Gracie’s presumed naivety, or is it a masterful move by a calculating actor? Elizabeth claims innocence with a brittle smile that easily cracks behind the scenes as her obsession grows. I’ve used the word “nuanced” too many times already, but there is simply so much to gauge from these characters based on everything they don’t say, which is then visualized in the meaningful cinematography, or parsed through outstanding performances and dialogue. There were multiple times where I nearly cried by simply watching Melton exist as this man-child stuck in his own trauma, pretending he has been set free by the person that has damned him. If May December is anything, it is intentionally holistic, firing on all cylinders to create the exact tone it wants to convey a plethora of interesting themes.
Hollywood sensationalisation, generational trauma, relationship power dynamics, perception and reception, obsession, and identity are all carefully negotiated and examined by Haynes’ tender hand. I find the most impressive movies to be the ones that know what they want to say and do so with quality execution in every aspect of the medium. May December, I can say with confidence, is a film that knows what it wants to be, a film that is truthful in how it knowingly lies to its audience for maximum thematic and narrative effectiveness. May December knows itself. Ironic, as every one of its characters couldn’t be less similar.