{"id":28988,"date":"2023-11-19T15:41:46","date_gmt":"2023-11-19T14:41:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/?p=28988"},"modified":"2023-11-19T15:41:46","modified_gmt":"2023-11-19T14:41:46","slug":"a-review-of-the-new-film-may-december","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/?p=28988","title":{"rendered":"A review of the new film &#8220;May December&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"\nAt the heart of this ambitious and ambiguous movie from director Todd Haynes are two enigmatic and ultimately unsympathetic female characters. There is Gracie Atherton-Yoo (a wonderful Julianne Moore), who 24 years earlier went to prison for having sex with a teenage boy whom she later married, and Elizabeth Berry (an outstanding Natalie Portman), an actress carrying out research for her portrayal of the younger Gracie in a sensitive, independent film. \n<p>\nAs Haynes has put it in an interview: &#8220;You keep shifting back and forth between trusting and mistrusting one or the other&#8221;. Caught in between these two women, who are in their different ways both manipulative, is Gracie&#8217;s young husband Joe Yoo (an impressive Charles Melton).\n<p>\nThe story is loosely based on the actual case of Mary Kay Letouneau, a teacher who seduced her very young pupil. This exploration of the ethical dilemma is an immensely stylish work. \n<p>\nSet in Savannah, Georgia, the play of light through windows and on caterpillars is truly captivating. The music &#8211; an adaptation of the Michel Legand theme from &#8220;The Go-Between&#8221; &#8211; is striking and disturbing. Two of the most memorable scenes are when Gracie applies make-up to Elizabeth and when Elizabeth gives a soliloquy direct to camera.\n<p>\nThis is almost as far from blockbuster material as you could imagine but, if you want to see a character-driven movie with two actresses at the top of their game, this is highly commended.\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>At the heart of this ambitious and ambiguous movie from director Todd Haynes are two enigmatic and ultimately unsympathetic female characters. There is Gracie Atherton-Yoo (a wonderful Julianne Moore), who 24 years earlier went to prison for having sex with a teenage boy whom she later married, and Elizabeth Berry (an outstanding Natalie Portman), an [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-28988","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-consumer-matters"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28988","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=28988"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28988\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28989,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28988\/revisions\/28989"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=28988"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=28988"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=28988"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}