May December

This movie is a tragically poetic tale of trauma and the effect it has on one’s life and psyche. I felt sick for most of it, with a giant pit in my stomach. Watching Elizabeth slowly start to emulate Gracie, from the way she spoke to how she dressed to how she did her make up to how she reacted to the world around her, was chilling. Natalie Portman has such a knack for portraying an obsessed artist and she shines here, especially in the monologue letter scene. I love Julianne Moore but it was honestly hard watch her as Gracie. She was so disgustingly manipulative to Joe, constantly telling him what to do and twisting the narrative of her abuse to paint herself as an innocent naive young woman seduced into an affair. Her monitoring how many drinks Joe’s had in her first line to him sums up their dynamic succinctly. I knew the direction their relationship was going immediately just from that. Speaking of Joe, Charles Melton commanded every scene he was in. I held my breath every time he was on screen. Everything he did from the way he talked to the way he held himself illustrated how Joe was simply a 13 year old trapped in a man’s body. How he was stuck at the age that Gracie abused at. The tragedy of him now being mentally younger than his children and them having the life that he would never had brought me to tears. This was especially prevalent in the scene with Charlie. Charles Melton deserves to be nominated for and win Best Supporting Actor at the Oscars. His performance was stunningly real and heart wrenchingly vulnerable. The whole movie was so symbolic and poetic. The screenplay, the score, even the title “May December.” I could go on and on about this movie’s depths and layers. It’s truly a marvel.