You would think May December (2023, Todd Haynes) is Sirkian melodrama, right? It has persecution from society, traditional feminine domestic roles/space, and the self-reflexive construct of artifice throughout. But it’s not entirely so, because it doesn’t seek to tear your heart out in that overly effusive attack on your emotions kind of way. And that’s why Todd Haynes is so good at doing his own thing—beautiful perfect make believe little dioramas where the character is just a little deranged enough to be fun but still hold up a mirror to show us ourselves.
And because I love Todd Haynes so much, I love Julianne Moore as GRACIE. It’s through Gracie the film is able to achieve its fundamental moral ambiguity. And if you’re open to trying hard enough to not merely discount her as crazy, you could begin to appreciate the strengths that contrast her weaknesses, and how the dreams of being happy contrast her nightmare reprehensible behaviors. Yeah sure, this is in fact a triangle protagonist thing and I should care about Natalie Portman as ELIZABETH and Charles Melton as JOE, but really I only care about Gracie.
Okay I know maybe I have a problem with decoding symbolism. But I can’t resist here the temptation to just sketch out: think about Joe gently nurturing butterflies from chrysalis to monarch; Elizabeth choosing a snake, a “kind that doesn’t bite,” to play her Gracie; against Gracie prowling the forest flanked by her 2 hunting dogs, with a shotgun, stalking an array of cute furry little woodland innocents.
The genre of May December should be called something like elevated melodrama. Or, I’d like even better something like arthouse melodrama, specifically because of the way it uses a Michel Legrand cue from The Go-Between (1971, Joseph Losey) much in the way Paranoid Park (2007, Gus Van Sant) uses the Nino Rota excerpt from Juliet of the Spirits (1965, Federico Fellini). The way that Legrand theme is used constantly shifts the tone of or our interpretation of shots. The biggest one maybe is right when the movie starts and there’s a slow zoom on Gracie lamenting they might not have enough hot dogs and the devastating music cue tells us maybe this is more tragic to her than we know? Or maybe this movie is disconnecting us from the melodrama code to get us to think about the art? Or maybe this movie is hilarious? Whatever it is, it’s fun too.
The setting is one of the factors contributing to another great strength in May December, which is how original this material feels and allows us to forget that real life story it vaguely resembles. (I know this is irrelevant but I love Savannah and when Elizabeth interviews Gracie’s ex at that coffee shop I freaked out because in real life it’s Gallery coffee shop and I always go there as much as I can I love it.) When they mention living on an island (more symbolism in the vein of Sirk) it’s gotta be Tybee, and, uh, how can I put this, mostly people with money live there and it’s kind of uh, quaint—perfect. Also yes, the downtown Savannah stuff is gorgeous. But that night exterior where there happens to be a tour conducted in the background where we overhear snippets of anecdotal history gruesome details of a hanging told almost like it’s a fun fact is bonkers.
May December is about each of its 3 main characters, and too nuanced and balanced for it to be worth me trying to outline. I see their flaws as much as I empathize with them. They’re all too human. And it’s as much a trashy tabloid premise as it is an elegantly executed prestige woman’s picture.
10/17/2023 Landmark Midtown Art Cinema
Atlanta, GA
DCP
No comments:
Post a Comment