London Film Festival 2023 review - May December (2023)

It’s an old fashioned, disarmingly innocent way of describing an age-gap relationship, but Todd Haynes’ choice of title for his latest film sets us up for a surprise. Not the beguiling romance that the title indicates, but something more uncomfortable and even sinister. And the issue at its core makes it an unexpected partner piece for another high profile feature on this year’s LFF programme – Sofia Coppola’s Priscilla.

May December lives in a world where the past and present are inextricably entwined. Gracie is a middle aged wife and mother, living a comfortable life with her three children and a husband who is around 20 years her junior. But behind that façade is a story which scandalised both the media and the public and determined their futures. She was in her mid-30s when they met: he was just 13 and she was sent to prison as a result, where she eventually gave birth to their first child. Twenty years later, their story is about to made into a movie and Elizabeth (Natalie Portman), the actress playing Gracie, comes to stay with the family as part of her research. While she’s there to get a strong understanding of the woman she’s playing, Elizabeth is also interested in all the other people in her life and it’s an experience that both shakes the relationship between the couple and exposes all of Gracie’s lingering insecurities.

The melodramatic piano which opens the film sets a thunderous, foreboding tone that threatens to become overbearing as the story progresses. It’s hard to ignore, and even harder to avoid its familiarity, because it’s a re-working of Michel Legrand’s score for 1970’s The Go-Between, the story of a secret love that defied class conventions of the day. The love story that forms the foundation of May December is even more problematic, one that’s become notorious for its scandal and means that, decades later, Gracie is still on the sex offenders’ . In its day – and probably even now – it’s a story tailor made for the media, and was treated in a salacious manner that means the family can never leave their past behind. Nasty parcels in the post make sure of that.

Haynes gifts the film a tenaciously lurking sense of malevolence, at times echoing Patricia Highsmith and The Talented Mr Ripley in particular. One of the women is the real person, the other the impersonator, but the boundaries between the two are cleverly blurred, and not just in a visual sense. We’re only told what the director wants us to know, so only some of the questions raised in the narrative ever get an answer: Elizabeth never asks Gracie about her time in prison, one of the most significant periods in her life. Such a large omission immediately places a question mark over her skills as an actress – she may be Juilliard trained, as she claims, but how good is she really? And will this new film version be any better than the previous one: from the clips we see, it was a tacky, tawdry affair and there’s little to indicate that what’s to come will be much of an improvement.

Re-united with Moore for the fifth time, Haynes once again gives her the type of character she relishes, one with depths, complexities and vulnerabilities, but who is also part of two formidable double acts. Her partnership with Portman bristles with suspicion while the unwanted visitor treads on eggshells in her efforts to break down her resistance. At the same time, Charles Melton is a real eye-opener as the young husband, simultaneously old for his age and immature, struggling to cope with the never-ending aftermath of the events of his youth, the guilt and a lingering desire for a life that is genuinely his own. A melodrama in a classic mould, but placed in a contemporary spotlight, it’s another winner from Haynes – knotty, visually stunning and infused with a feeling of discomfort that’s hard to shake.