Natalie Portman and Julianne Moore make magic in “May December”

Todd Haynes' latest film is a creepy, campy masterpiece.

As with all euphemisms, the title of Todd Haynes’ new film sounds cute, almost quaint…while hiding a strange darkness underneath. “May-December” is the gentle sobriquet often applied to romances where one partner is much older than the other—think Sofia Vergara and Ed O’Neill in Modern Family. The bleak irony of applying it to a relationship that involved statutory rape and no small amount of psychological damage is the first stroke of brilliance in Haynes’ latest masterpiece, but far from the last. Creepy and campy in equal measure, May December will certainly leave your head spinning.

Hollywood movies are so full of childhood fantasies (even this year, with superheroes on the downswing, the box office has been dominated by Mario and Barbie) that it’s a welcome relief when a film comes along with something meaningful to say about contemporary adult concerns. Even better when such a film actually depicts a violent collision between adult life and the sensibilities of childhood. But that’s not all. May December’s fictionalization of the real-life Mary Kay Letourneau story also riffs on true-crime obsessions, age-gap romances, and the blurred lines between journalism and performance in the age of social media…all things that feel very relevant to life on the internet in 2023.

Julianne Moore stars as Gracie Atherton-Yoo, a woman who — like the real-life Letourneau — spent years in jail after having sex with an underage boy. Also like Letourneau, Gracie resumed the relationship after being released from prison and has had several children with her now-husband Joe Yoo (Charles Melton). The viewer arrives in their world alongside Elizabeth Berry (Natalie Portman), an actress who is set to play Gracie in an upcoming movie and wants to access the “truth” of what really happened, beyond the headlines. As such, Elizabeth often presents herself as a kind of journalist, seeking out interviews with other figures relevant to the story (such as Gracie’s first husband, her criminal defense lawyer, and so on) while also spending lots of time with Gracie and Joe.

The involvement of Portman’s protagonist transforms May December from being the kind of rote true-crime story that fills streaming service queues to a meta-fiction meditation about how media can warp people’s perceptions of themselves (and, therefore, their realities). It quickly becomes apparent that, despite the hate mail sometimes left on their doorstep, Gracie and Joe live in a secure bubble without ever thinking too much about how their relationship began and what that might mean for the nature of their lives. But the more questions Elizabeth asks, the closer their bubble comes to popping.

When age-gap relationships come under public scrutiny, it’s often one where the older partner is male and the younger female. Gracie and Joe’s relationship upends that dynamic, and it’s not the film’s only role reversal. Elizabeth, after all, isn’t a reporter seeking to interview Gracie; she’s an actress who is trying to embody her. The more time the two spend together, the more Elizabeth comes to dress and even act like Gracie, making the viewer wonder who’s really the driving force in their interactions. While Gracie speaks with a lisp, Joe talks with a stutter — both indicators of stunted childhoods, or pieces of performative victimhood? Your perception may change as the movie goes on. Initial impressions of Gracie’s relationships with her neighbors and her eldest son (Cory Michael Smith) also mutate over the course of the movie — not unlike the monarch butterflies that Joe keeps in special habitats throughout their home.

Portman gives a hypnotic performance at the center of May December. She’s the audience surrogate, learning facts of the case alongside the viewer — but she is not an objective observer. She seeks to take the material of these people’s lives so as to absorb them into herself, and the film doesn’t shy away from the unsettling aspects of that process.

It’s also to Portman’s credit that she didn’t direct May December herself, after screenwriter Samy Burch brought her the script with that in mind. Instead, she sought out Haynes, whose past work on movies about women struggling to survive in a patriarchal society and the mysterious dark sides of public icons made him uniquely capable of walking this story’s many tonal tightropes. Directors get a lot of credit for successful films, and rightly so — but not everyone has to seek out that role. Sometimes it’s just as valuable to use star power as a producer to secure the right creative talent for the job and then protect them from pressure.

Moore has worked with Haynes several times before, and May December carries some knowing echoes of their past movies. When Gracie insists that her college-bound son drink milk to overcome his supposed “severe calcium deficiency,” she sounds just like Moore’s self-described “milkaholic” in Safe. The “forbidden romance” aspect of Gracie’s marriage to Joe may also remind some viewers of Far From Heaven. But be careful: Every time you think you have a grasp on what Gracie wants or why she does what she does, Moore pulls the rug out from under you.

As he did in Safe, Haynes carefully constructs a cinematic world in May December where the environment reflects (and perhaps inspires) the characters' feelings. When Joe is explaining to Elizabeth how he fell for Gracie as a young boy working with her at a pet supply store, he says, “She saw me” — just as golden-hour sunlight peeks from behind the Georgia swamp they’re walking through. At a later point in the film, two characters’ unsettling argument is echoed by rumbling thunderclouds. Haynes’ camera often perceives these characters from around a corner, or from the other side of a mirror, or inside what they think is a safe space — always giving the viewer the simultaneously icky and exhilarating feeling of being a trespasser on private secrets.

Like so many movies that first premiered at this year's film festivals, May December was bought by Netflix after Cannes and will have a limited theatrical release before hitting the streaming platform at the top of December. Either experience should have its benefits: In a theater, you can share the discomfort with others, while watching at home (where it will exist side-by-side with so many straight-faced true-crime programs) should make the viewing experience even more alarming, in the best possible way. Grade: A-

Want more movie news? Sign up for Entertainment Weekly's free newsletter to get the latest trailers, celebrity interviews, film reviews, and more.

Related content:

• How Todd Haynes' May December channeled Mary Kay Letourneau and classic female melodramas

• Before Barbie, there was Todd Haynes' infinitely weirder Barbie movie about Karen Carpenter

• Todd Haynes on 30 years of New Queer Cinema: 'We were trying to make sense of an incredibly scary time'

Read the original article on Entertainment Weekly.