News feed
CANNES, FRANCE (MAY 21, 2023): There’s an early scene in Todd Haynes’ latest drama where 36-year-old actress Elizabeth (played by Academy Award-winner Natalie Portman) visits the sprawling seaside property of Gracie Artherton-Yoo (Academy Award winner Julianne Moore), the woman Elizabeth is playing in an upcoming Hollywood blockbuster.
“You look taller on television, but we’re basically the same size,” 60-year-old Gracie tells Elizabeth, nervously patting her cooking apron.
“We’re basically the same,” Elizabeth lies.
Elizabeth is spending time with Gracie and her husband Joe (Riverdale’s Charles Melton) who were at the centre of a nationwide scandal 20 years prior. At the time, Gracie was a 36-year-old teacher at Joe’s school—and Joe was just 13 when the pair struck up a relationship. As they tell Elizabeth, they were caught in the act in the back of a pet store.
“What’s fascinating to me is my character transgresses. An age gap is one thing,” the ever articulate Moore says, adjusting her microphone as she addresses the press in Cannes. “But a relationship between an adult and a child is something else entirely.”
“[Gracie’s] transgression, I believe, is so enormous that she sort of buries it within her own identity and in her own performative femininity,” she continues. “When is age inappropriate? It’s inappropriate when people are in different places developmentally, and when someone is not an adult. In this particular movie, you see Gracie’s transgressions as well as everybody else’s. And the reason this film feels so dangerous is because people don’t know where anyone’s boundaries are. It feels scary.”
I’m unsure about “scary”, but parts of this film definitely feel unsettling. Between Gracie’s over-the-top breakdown over a cake, to a seemingly put-together Elizabeth attempting to seduce Joe, the film does get quite dark at times—and Haynes has done an excellent job at capturing the moment where someone crosses a social boundary and everybody else in that room feels unsafe, the audience included. Who can you trust? Comic enlightenment arrives in the form of a crashing four-note piano refrain—but it does so at the strangest of times, and almost makes light of the heavy subject matter.
“It’s incredible to get to be a part of a film like this which has two such complex, really human characters that are full of all of those delicious conflicts that we are all full of,” says Portman, who is dressed in a red blazer and mini dress combo a la Jackie Kennedy, a role she famously landed. “It was incredible to see Todd’s view of women simply as humans and allow us to be messy and complete.”
What transpires is a lot of mismanaged past traumas from a group of people who seemingly have never had a good, hard look at themselves in the mirror. Shot across just 23 days, the on-screen combined power of Portman and Moore is immense, particularly in one scene where the pair are in the bathroom and Gracie is showing Elizabeth how she puts her makeup on. The scene seems to show the emotional pull Gracie has over younger people—and it’s disturbing. Some might even say scary. But you’re unable to look away as both women are so engaging.
Of the gruelling schedule, Moore tells of the day where she needed to recite six pages of dialogue—which is a lot in actor land—and she felt she couldn’t do it.
“Nat said, ‘You got this,’” recalls Moore, who is dressed is Chanel white jeans. “And I was so grateful. I still say it to myself—I really do—on my own. Everyone [on set] was so invested, connected and collaborative and supportive of one another.”
“It was such a joy getting to watch Julianne as part of my character, because it’s what I wanted to do anyway,” says Portman. “I had to keep reminding myself that I was in the scene also!”
May December will hit Australian cinemas on February 1, 2024.
