May December (2023)

dir Todd Haynes

Difficult watch in terms of emotional response, but easy watch in regard to audience experience. This one is somewhere between made-for-television and meta black comedy. The music is really something else.

Can I just say that I’m so proud of Charles Melton for giving a kick ass performance post Riverdale? He really did that. The way he played a 36 year old man who was emotionally stunted around his early teens impressed me. The message was clear but he didn’t overdo it. I didn’t know he had it in him. Like I love Riverdale, but they don’t exactly encourage subtlety in their actors’ performances… but he really had my heart breaking for Joe Yoo!

It’s so fucked up that he’s seeing his kids at the age he himself became a father and realizing that he was waaaay too young for all of this. It’s so fucked that trauma doesn’t just disappear if you never acknowledge it, like c’mon! It should at least drop off your record in 7 years like medical debt. Poor Joe. And his butterflies :(

The cherry on top of this film is that you get to compare three sets of characters: (1) Mary Kay Letourneau and Vili Fuallaau, (2) Julianne Moore as Gracie Atherton and Charles Melton as Joe Yoo, and (3) Natalie Portman as Elizabeth Berry as Gracie and Evan Zhu as TV Movie ‘Joe’.

(1) pictured below

(2) pictured below

(3) pictured below

If you’re going to watch May December, you should really follow it up with Tampa by Alissa Nutting if you haven’t read it already (or recently). The actions of pedophiles who are women should disgust you just as much as those who are men!