With awards season around the corner, we’re sizing up some of the films and series set to be winners. One film that has gained considerable Oscars buzz since its Cannes Film Festival debut is May December.
Starring Julianne Moore, Natalie Portman, and Riverdale‘s Charles Melton, the Todd Haynes-directed film has received critical acclaim for the powerful performances of its leads.
The drama follows an actress named Elizabeth Berry (Portman) who travels to Savannah, Georgia, to meet and study the life of the controversial Gracie Atherton-Yoo (Moore), a woman infamous for having a two-decade-long relationship with her husband, Joe Yoo (Melton), whom she first met as a minor.
But if the story sounds vaguely familiar, it’s because the screenplay by Samy Burch is loosely based on the true story of Mary Kay Letourneau and Vili Fualaau.
Below, we break down the real-life events that inspired May December.
Who is Mary Kay Letourneau?
Mary Kay Letourneau was an American sixth-grade teacher at Shorewood Elementary in Burien, Washington. In 1996, when Letourneau was 34, she began a sexual relationship with her student Vili Fualaau, who was just 12. The teacher was married with four children at the time but claimed to suffer extreme abuse from her husband.
According to reports, Letourneau was only arrested in March of 1997 after a relative of her husband contacted the police.
After pleading guilty to two counts of second-degree child rape, she was initially sentenced to six months in prison. Her first child with Fualaau, a daughter, was born in May of 1997 while she was awaiting sentencing. Upon her release, Letourneau failed to adhere to a no-contact order and was caught meeting up with Fualaau, so a judge reinstated a prison sentence of seven years for the violation.
While serving her second stint in jail, Letourneau gave birth to her second daughter with Fualaau on October 16, 1998.
Then, in August 2004, Letourneau was released from prison and Fualaau, then 21, persuaded the court to reverse the no-contact order against her. The two married on May 20, 2005,
After almost 12 years of marriage, Fualaau filed for separation from Letourneau in 2017 but later withdrew the filing. An article by People quoted an insider source who said, “They know what everyone thinks about their relationship… And they don’t care. They really never have. The wrong stuff that happened was so long ago. They are two grown adults who are living their lives now.”
However, the couple finalised a legal separation in 2019.
Though Fualaau initially urged that he was not a victim and had no regrets, a source “close to Fualaau” told People that his perspective has changed. “He sees things clearly now and realises that this wasn’t a healthy relationship from the start,” they said in 2020.
Letourneau passed away on July 6, 2020, at her home after battling colorectal cancer. She was 58.
How much of May December is true?
Much of the plot rings true to the real-life journey of Mary Kay and Vili, but some key differences distinguish the story.
May December takes place in Georgia instead of Washington, and the two meet while working at a pet shop together instead of at school. The age gap between Gracie and Joe is slightly smaller than that of Mary Kay and Vili, although Joe is still depicted as underage when the affair occurs.
Writer Samy Burch has admitted that the story was more of a “jumping off point” for the story she wanted to convey.
“Certainly, that’s the seed of it, the big picture thing, but it was important to me that this wasn’t the Mary Kay Letourneau story,” she told The Hollywood Reporter at the film’s LA premiere. “It wasn’t the same details—I certainly don’t want anyone to assume that we’re trying to say all these conversations happened behind closed doors. It’s not. This was just a jumping-off point and a way that something like this made sense to me emotionally.”
Burch also wanted to focus on the impact of tabloid culture, particularly its intensity in the ’90s, and how it shaped how these notorious stories have stayed with us.
“I really wanted a fictional story that dealt with this tabloid culture of the ’90s that has kind of seemingly led into this true-crime biopic world we’re in now, and kind of question that transition and why we want to keep recreating these stories,” she explained. “That was the real jumping-off point for me… All of these stories like this that are in the ether are just completely embedded in everyone’s cultural history.”
‘May December’ will be released on Netflix on December 1, 2023. Watch the full trailer below.
