Starring: Natalie Portman, Julianne Moore, Charles Melton, D.W. Moffett, Piper Curda, Elizabeth Yu, Gabriel Chung
OUR RATING: ★★★½
Story:
Netflix drama directed by Todd Haynes. May December (2023) centers on Gracie Atherton-Yoo and Joe Yoo (Julianne Moore and Charles Melton), a married couple with a large age gap, who twenty years after their notorious tabloid romance gripped the nation, buckle under the pressure when an actress, Elizabeth Berry (Natalie Portman), arrives to do research for a film about their past.
Where to Watch:
Best Quotes
Gracie: [referring to Elizabeth] All I ask is that she’s polite. You know, not just sitting there with her big movie star sunglasses on. Like too good for everything. If she’s here, I want her to participate.
Gracie: I thought you were taller. You look taller on television, but we’re basically the same size.
Elizabeth: We’re basically the same.
Elizabeth: I can’t thank you enough for doing this. It’s so generous.
Gracie: Oh, my gosh. Well, I want you to tell the story right, don’t I?
Elizabeth: That’s all I want. I want you to feel seen and known.
Gracie: I have a sixth sense about these things. God, I knew it.
Elizabeth: What is it?
Gracie: It’s a box of S-H-I-T. We haven’t had one in a while, but it’s just par for the course. Don’t look so shocked.
Elizabeth: What is it you love most about Gracie?
Rhonda: She always knows what she wants. She’s unapologetic.
Rhonda: It really feels like things just settled down, and now y’all are making a movie.
Elizabeth: It’s a very complex and human story.
Rhonda: Just be kind.
Elizabeth: [referring to Gracie] Eyes round, pointy. Closed when they’re open. Pink lipstick. Slight pout. Bird-like, but steely. Mechanical. Or just removed.
Gracie: This is Elizabeth. She’s playing me in a movie, so I’m trying to show her a good time.
Lydia: That I don’t doubt.
Gracie: Why do you want to play me?
Elizabeth: When they sent me the script, I just thought, now here is a woman with a lot more to her than I remember from the tabloids and our cultural memory.
Gracie: I don’t really think about all that.
Elizabeth: You don’t ever dwell on the past?
Gracie: I have my plate pretty full.
Elizabeth: I mean, I know that for me, personally, the past weighs on me. You know, decisions I’ve made, or relationships.
Gracie: So you just sit there and you think about your history and your behavior.
Elizabeth: Yeah, sometimes.
Gracie: I think my childhood was exceptional.
Gracie: [referring to Joe] I didn’t really meet him until he came to the pet store looking for a job.
Elizabeth: That was summer after sixth grade?
Joe, Gracie: Seventh.
Gracie: It’s my understanding that the movie takes place between 1992 and 1994, am I wrong? So why would you need to know anything that happened after that?
Elizabeth: Well, there are things that exist inside people that don’t necessarily come to head until later, and I try and look for the seeds of those things.
Elizabeth: I just realized we’re basically the same age.
Joe Yoo: Yeah?
Elizabeth: Yeah, I’m thirty-six. Funny, I’m just now starting to think about having kids, and you’re almost sending yours off to college. I can’t imagine.
Elizabeth: It’s strange, even after everything she did, and how public it was, she doesn’t seem to carry around any shame or guilt.
Aaron: Yeah, that’s probably a personality disorder.
Elizabeth: But isn’t it kind of radical? I mean, clean slate every day. No doubts. No regrets.
Aaron: Meaning what? Now you have all these doubts?
Elizabeth: No.
'I think sometimes talking can feel good.' - Tom Atherton (May December) Share on X
Tom Atherton: [referring to Gracie] What would make a thirty-six year old woman have an affair with a seventh grader? Beats me.
Elizabeth: How did you find out?
Tom Atherton: I found out the way everybody found out, when they got busted in that stupid stockroom at the pet store, and she got arrested.
Tom Atherton: [referring to Gracie and Joe] I’m happy now. You know, I don’t see them very much. But her and the boy, you know, they seem happy. So, what do I know?
Elizabeth: Why did you marry a man like Tom?
Gracie: I was young, and he seemed perfect on paper. It was a different time. My father used to say, “You’re either leaving this house in a veil, or in a box.”
Elizabeth: I already have an idea of what it must’ve felt like.
Joe Yoo: What felt like?
Elizabeth: Sneaking around with you. I probably shouldn’t have said that. You won’t tell anyone, will you?
Joe Yoo: No worries.
Morris Sperber: It’s funny, really, because for all the rapists, murderers, frauds, hitmen, never did I end up on the front page of the New York Times. But for Gracie, I ended up on the front page of the New York Times. Down in Slow-vannah.
Elizabeth: What did she say exactly?
Morris Sperber: She said, “I got caught having an affair.” And I said, “Gracie, forgive me, but that’s not illegal in this country. And if it were, there’d be a lot of people in serious trouble.”
Elizabeth: So she was in denial, you would say?
Morris Sperber: Oh, absolutely. She didn’t think she did anything wrong. She was head over heels. He was a good-looking kid. But she had no conception. I mean, prison? She thought she could just explain it all to the judge and that’d be that. It was a little Romeo and Juliet. A little bit starry-eyed.
Elizabeth: When did it sink in?
Morris Sperber: Has it sunk in yet?
Georgie: Oh, I know who this is. I know perfectly well. The actress.
Elizabeth: The son.
Georgie: How much are they paying you for this? Is it a lot? Are they paying her? No?
Elizabeth: It’s an independent movie.
Elizabeth: I’ve heard you’re really creative. And sensitive and sweet.
Georgie: Well, they would say that.
Elizabeth: Well, what are you then?
Georgie: I’m a phoenix rising from the ashes. I’m just a ghost.
Elizabeth: Because of what happened?
Georgie: Well, it ruined my life. Of course.
Morris Sperber: [to Elizabeth, referring to Georgie] As you can see, the situation is not without its casualties.
Joe Yoo: I can’t believe the kids are going to be at college in the fall. An empty nest.
Joe Sr.: You’re going to have more time to focus on other things.
Kimme: How do you choose your roles?
Elizabeth: Well, when I’m lucky enough to choose my roles, I want to find a character that’s difficult to, on the surface, understand. I want to take the person. I want to figure out why are they like this. Were they born, or were they made? And that can run the gamut, from the more notorious to the just anyone.
Mary Atherton-Yoo: Why would you want to play someone who you think is a bad person?
Elizabeth: Are you kidding? I mean, pick any great role.
'It's the complexity. It's the moral grey areas that are interesting.' - Elizabeth (May December) Share on X
Gracie: Now this is silly.
Elizabeth: This is actually very serious business.
Gracie: If you say so.
Gracie: So did you always want to be an actress?
Elizabeth: Always. I wanted to be on Broadway. And when I told my parents, I was nine or ten, they were so disappointed. They said, “Honey, you’re so much smarter than that.”
Gracie: What did you say? Are you smarter than that?
Elizabeth: I don’t know.
Joe Yoo: So, it’s hard to tell what you actually think about all this.
Elizabeth: Well, I think you have a very nice family. And you’re both interesting people.
Joe Yoo: Okay.
Elizabeth: I don’t know. What do you think?
Joe Yoo: I think it’s hard to trust that. You know? That you’re going to represent things as they were, or…
Elizabeth: I’m going to try.
Joe Yoo: I don’t know. It’s hard to feel. People, they like see me as like a victim, or something. I mean, we’ve been together for almost twenty-four years now. Like why would we do that if we weren’t happy?
Joe Yoo: [referring to Gracie] She saw me. I wanted it.
Gracie: Elizabeth. She’s getting on my last nerve.
Joe Yoo: Why?
Gracie: She’s just everywhere I look. And for what?
Joe Yoo: For the movie. So people can see it, and understand more. And maybe it’s more easier for you?
Gracie: For me?
Joe Yoo: For us. The both of us.
Elizabeth: I feel like I’m getting really close to something true. Something honest.
Gracie: You know, Joe’s been with more women than I have men.
Elizabeth: Is that right?
Gracie: Nobody seems to remember that. I’d only been with Tom. But Joe’d been with two girls before me.
Elizabeth: When he was in the seventh grade?
Gracie: He led a very different life than me.
Elizabeth: [reading Joe’s card to Gracie from when they met] “Peace is sitting on a lake in the summertime. Peace is a Coca-Cola on a hot summer day. Peace is being with you.”
Gracie: The assignment was “What is peace?”
Joe Yoo: God, I can’t tell if we’re connecting, or if I’m creating a bad memory for you in real time, but I can’t help it.
Charlie Atherton-Yoo: No, we’re connecting, Dad. It’s okay. It’s okay. Don’t worry about me.
Joe Yoo: It’s all I do.
Elizabeth: [referring to the movie] I hope in the end that you’ll feel it had something to say, and that we captured something true.
Honor Atherton-Yoo: True like how it isn’t awkward at all that you’re at this graduation dinner right now?
Gracie: Honor, I got you that scale, as I told you at the time, as a tradition, because that’s what my mother got me when I graduated from high school. You try going through life without a scale. See how that goes.
'Keep your expectations low, and you'll never be disappointed.' - Gracie (May December) Share on X
Elizabeth: So what were your expectations?
Gracie: That tonight would go well. That my children would love me. And my life would be perfect.
Elizabeth: That was a little naive.
Gracie: I am naive. I always have been. In a way, it’s been a gift.
Elizabeth: [referring to Gracie being abused by her brothers] Explains a lot. Why does she still talk to them?
Georgie: Lady, she’s messed up in the head. That’s what I’m trying to tell you.
Elizabeth: [after she kisses him] You’re so young. Believe me. You could start over.
Joe Yoo: And do what?
Elizabeth: Anything.
Elizabeth: [after they’ve had sex] Listen, whatever happens, she’s going to be okay. People like Gracie…
Joe Yoo: No, she won’t. No. You really don’t know her.
Elizabeth: Let me tell you something. Your responsibility, ultimately, is to yourself.
Joe Yoo: Elizabeth, I think it’s a little more complicated than that.
Elizabeth: You’re going to do what you’re going to do. But stories like these…
Joe Yoo: Stories? Stories?
Elizabeth: You know what I mean. Instances.
Joe Yoo: This isn’t a story! This is my f***ing life! Jesus.
Elizabeth: No need to get so worked up about it.
Joe Yoo: I thought you actually liked me, and that we had a connection.
Elizabeth: I like you.
Joe Yoo: Then what was this about?
Elizabeth: This is just what grown-ups do.
Joe Yoo: I think there are a lot of things we haven’t talked about in a long time. Maybe ever.
Gracie: What kind of things?
Joe Yoo: Things about our relationship.
Joe Yoo: What if I wasn’t ready to be making those kinds of decisions. Then what? Because the kids. What would that mean?
Gracie: I don’t understand what you’re saying.
Joe Yoo: I’m saying, what if I was too young?
Gracie: I don’t care how old you were. Who was in charge?
Joe Yoo: What?
Gracie: Who was the boss? Who was in charge? Who was in charge?
Gracie: I’m very sympathetic, but you’re starting to upset me.
Joe Yoo: You have not been sympathetic. Why can’t we talk about it? If we’re really as in love as we say we are? If we have that rare… Shouldn’t I be able to talk about this with you?
Elizabeth: [mimicking Gracie from her letter to Joe] My love, after you left tonight, I thought about the kind of life that we could have if things were different. If I’d been born later, or you long ago. But who knows what we would have been like then. Or where. What tragedies we’d have to face along the way. What bad luck. This is not what I ever would have wanted. But I’m so grateful that our paths led us to this road. No matter what the cost.
Elizabeth: [continuing her monologue from Gracie’s letter to Joe] I think about you all the time. And the feeling I get when we look each other in the eyes. Do you feel that too? I know you don’t have much to compare it to, but let me assure you, it is rare. I’ve gone my whole life without it. And now that I’ve found it, I can’t imagine going back and pretending.
Elizabeth: [continuing her monologue from Gracie’s letter to Joe] When this first started, I didn’t know what to think. I knew that we’d crossed a line, and I felt in my heart that we would cross it again. But now I think I’ve lost track of where the line is. Who even draws these lines? All I know is that I love you and you love me. And you gave me so much pleasure tonight. I hope I did the same for you. I’ll see you Saturday. And please burn this. You know what could happen to me if anyone ever found it. Your Gracie.
Gracie: I wonder if any of this will have really mattered for your movie.
Elizabeth: I think it will.
Gracie: You understand me?
Elizabeth: I do.
'Insecure people are very dangerous, aren't they?' - Gracie (May December) Share on X
Gracie: [to Elizabeth, after denying her abuse by her brothers] I’m secure. Make sure you put that in there.
Elizabeth: [acting as Gracie] Are you scared?
Young Actor: [as Joe] No.
Elizabeth: It’s okay to be scared.
Young Actor: I’m not.
Elizabeth: She won’t bite.
Young Actor: How do you know?
Elizabeth: She’s not that kind of snake.
Director: Beautiful. I think we got it.
Elizabeth: Wait. Can we do it again, please? Please? Just for me. Please. Wait. It’s getting more real.