Natalie Portman and Julianne Moore's 'May December' Film: What to Know

June 2024 · 5 minute read

May December is a film about a couple struggling below the load in their age hole, which takes inspiration from the tale of Mary Kay Letourneau‘s infamous affair with her student Vili Fualaau, who was 22 years her junior.

According to the synopsis, the film alternatives up years after a infamous romance between Gracie (Moore) and Joe (Charles Melton) gripped the country. The couple, who have a 23-year age gap, are getting ready to send their children off to faculty when Elizabeth (Portman) comes to the city in preparation for a brand new film in accordance with the couple. The actress begins to do analysis on Gracie and Joe, which reasons their dynamic to get to the bottom of as Joe comes to terms with what happened in his adolescence.

May December to start with found luck at the Cannes Film Festival in May 2023 with a six-minute standing ovation. Netflix purchased the film and set a much wider liberate in theaters and streaming.

Before the film was to be had to a larger audience, director Todd Haynes discussed bringing the project to lifestyles in lower than a month.

“It was very important for Natalie and Julie to spend time together as a result of Julie’s personality had to establish a form of bodily sort that Natalie’s character has to get started to imitate right through the course of the film. That put an amazing additional burden on Julianne to get a hold of who Gracie was in no time,” he advised The Hollywood Reporter that very same month. “We actually did do our perfect to [have] just time spent socially with Julianne and Charles and the two major children who were within the film. All of that time simply placing out and speaking helped. We didn’t in point of fact have a large number of time actually within the room working through scenes or going during the script up to we might have appreciated.”

Scroll down for the entirety to know about May December:

What Is the Plot of ‘May December’?

The film explores a married couple (Moore and Melton) — with a big age hole — who begin to struggle with their reality when an actress (Portman) arrives to do research for a film about their previous.

Who Makes Up the Cast of ‘May December’?

The film stars Portman, Moore and Melton. D.W. Moffett, Piper Curda, Elizabeth Yu, Gabriel Chung, Cory Michael Smith and Lawrence Arancio spherical out the solid.

What Has the Official Trailer Revealed?

According to the primary teaser for the film, which was once launched by way of Netflix in September 2023, Moore and Portman are observed going through each and every different within the mirror. Portman’s persona reputedly tries to reproduction Moore’s mannerisms while saying, “I take into consideration you always.”

“Both girls are circling each different and trying to get a maintain on every other,” Haynes instructed Netflix’s Tudum in September 2023 after an extended minimize of the trailer was once launched. “I believe a large number of it is a couple of process of consider, which is Natalie’s character Elizabeth’s purpose to make Gracie feel toward her. It’s Elizabeth’s project to try to navigate round these resistances piece by piece.”

When Will ‘May December’ Be Released?

The film premiered in choose theaters on November 17, 2023 and was once available to move on Netflix from December 1, 2023.

What Is the Message Behind the Story?

In May 2023, Portman mentioned what drew her to the film, telling Vogue, “It was truly a laugh to get to explore being an actress, and what it approach to depict a real-life tale. It gets you serious about how you may influence something — it’s a question a documentarian or journalist may additionally ask — and how you impact a story via your portrayal of it. And it’s also about whether or now not art can be amoral.”

Portman applauded Haynes for his non-judgmental approach to the film’s tale, telling Variety four months later, “[He] has an in-depth understanding of human behavior. His feminine characters are complex and multidimensional.”

What Real Life Events Helped Shape ‘May December’?

Haynes up to now praised screenwriter Samy Burch‘s vision for the story.

“I truly discovered myself honoring the distinction in Samy’s script from one of the crucial famous examples of those tabloid stories like Mary Kay Letourneau. I used to be in point of fact taking a look extra for kind of cinematic correlatives for the reason that nature of the script is that you simply’re left in a state of uncertainty about what to think about these other people,” he told The Hollywood Reporter in May 2023. “The reliability you attribute first of all to Elizabeth, the character Natalie Portman performs, begins to develop into destabilized because the film unfolds. You’re in a constant state of reevaluation.”

He continued: “So, I was extra excited about how will we tell this tale and let all of the ones techniques of reading the film be made fulfilling and allow the target audience to feel like it was going to be a a laugh film to be navigating.”

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How Do Mary Kay Letourneau and Vili Fualaau Relate to the Film?

Letourneau made headlines in 1996 when information broke about her affair with Fualaau, who used to be a sixth-grade scholar at the time. After Letourneau served jail time, the pair exchanged vows in 2005 and raised their daughters, Audrey and Georgia. Letourneau and Fualaau subsequently called it quits in 2019 and she passed away from colorectal most cancers 365 days later.

Film enthusiasts have identified the most important similarities between May December and Letourneau’s private existence.

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