May December
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Natalie Portman is an interesting figure in the world of cinema. And the movie May December is a meta-analysis of Natalie's psychological journey through Hollywood. It is not a surprise that her first movie Leon: The Professional caused some levels of controversy. It was mainly an action film, so there was not that much controversy. But the dramatic elements of the film were questioned a lot by American audiences. Even Natalie Portman herself, being half-American described Leon as "cringe". And it seems like the growing obsession with all kind of sexual misconducts in Hollywood together with growing feelings of cringe from Leon made her into needing a movie like May December to evaluate everything and understand the phenomenon better.
May December is based on a true story of a woman named Mary Katherine Fualaau who was a teacher in Burien, Washington. She ( then going by a name Letourneau ) and a 12 year old boy named Vili Fualaau ( who she later married ) were caught having sex in a car. She was sentenced to prison for that. Even though after she was released, the boy ( then 21 ) persuaded the court to reverse the no-contact order against her and then met her and they married.
In the movie May December the story is about a young actress preparing for a role where the main character is based on a very similar woman to Mary Fualaau. The young actress is played by Natalie Portman, the woman she is preparing to play is played by Julianne Moore and her young husband is played by Charles Melton. The main thematic arc is for Portman's character to become so much like Moore's character, that she truly understands her. Which is in my opinion a very meta thing for Portman to do.
As she described her life in Hollywood in the beginning of her career was rather strange. Starting her career not with some kind of kids movie, but with Leon meant that a lot of people saw her differently than other children in Hollywood. For example, when she was 13 years old, a radio station started counting down days until she will be 18. She was offered a bunch of roles similar to those in Leon. She had to decline them. She had to build a persona of an academic, smart girl around herself as a defense mechanism from horny dudes around the world obsessing over her. And so apparently now was the time to understand this craziness. Playing a character who is trying to understand a different character who slept with a child was the kind of role that perhaps would be the best kind of therapy session for Natalie. Kind of like what "The Fablemans" was for Steven Spielberg.
Directed by Todd Haynes the movie is kind of interesting. For example toward the beginning you have a very weird, but absolutely fantastic decision, to have a dramatic zoom on Moore's character as she says that they have not enough hot-dogs. Otherwise the movie is not trying to be fancy. It is very grainy. Kind of low-budgety. The camera is mostly very static. It's not trying to go Spielberg. It knows what it wants to show and it does it well. There are a lot of single shots that are very long in the film, all of which have interesting composition. The camera doesn't move, but what the camera sees is interesting non-the-less.
The film is acting heavy and dialogue heavy. Even though at times it feels like the characters are just spitting out talking points for their positions rather than having an actual argument. Though quite frankly how else would you do a movie like that? The audience need some reference of what those people think. And the framing device of a clueless actress trying to learn how to play these characters makes those talking point conversations sound natural. So I guess it is good after all. Though I'm wondering if that could be done in any way better.
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