Natalie Portman and Julianne Moore’s ‘May December’ Movie: What You Need to Know

May December is a film about a couple struggling under the weight of their age difference, inspired by the story of Mary Kay Letourneau’s infamous affair with her student Vili Fualaauwho was 22 years younger than her.

According to the synopsis, the film picks up years after an infamous romance between Gracie (Moore) and Joe (Charles Melton) held the nation in its grip. The couple, who have a 23-year age difference, are getting ready to send their children off to college when Elizabeth (Portman) comes to town in preparation for a new movie based on the couple. The actress begins to investigate Gracie and Joe, causing their dynamic to fall apart as Joe comes to terms with what happened in his childhood.

May December found initial success at the Cannes Film Festival in May 2023 to a six-minute standing ovation. Netflix acquired the film and gave it a wider release in theaters and streaming.

Before the film became available to a wider audience, director Todd Haynes discussed bringing the project to life in less than a month.

“It was very important for Natalie and Julie to spend time together because Julie’s character had to develop a kind of physical type that Natalie’s character had to imitate over the course of the film. That put a huge additional burden on Julianne to figure out who Gracie was very quickly,” he shared The Hollywood Reporter that same month. “We really did our best for that [have] just time spent socially with Julianne and Charles and the two main kids who were in the movie. All the while, just sitting around and talking helped. We didn’t really have as much time to literally work through scenes in the room or go over the script as we would have liked.

Scroll down for everything you need to know about it May December:

What is the plot of ‘May December’?

The film explores a married couple (Moore and Melton) – with a large age difference – who begin to struggle with their reality when an actress (Portman) arrives to conduct research for a film about their past.

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Who makes up the cast of ‘May December’?

The film stars Portman, Moore and Melton. DW Moffet, Piper Curda, Elizabeth Yu, Gabriel Chung, Cory Michael Smith And Laurentius Arancio round out the cast.

What did the official trailer reveal?

According to the first teaser for the film, which was released by Netflix in September 2023, Moore and Portman are seen facing each other in the mirror. Portman’s character seemingly tries to copy Moore’s mannerisms as he says, “I think about you all the time.”

“Both women are circling each other and trying to get a grip on each other,” Haynes told Netflix’s Tudum in September 2023 after a longer version of the trailer was released. “I think a lot of it is about a process of trust, and that’s the goal of Natalie’s character Elizabeth to get Gracie to feel feelings for her. It is Elizabeth’s project to gradually overcome these resistances.”

When will ‘May December’ be released?

The film premiered in select theaters on November 17, 2023 and was available for streaming on Netflix on December 1, 2023.

What is the message behind the story?

In May 2023, Portman discussed what drew her to the film, narrating Fashion, “It was a lot of fun discovering what it means to be an actress, and what it means to portray a true story. It makes you think about how you could influence something – it’s a question a documentary maker or journalist could also ask – and how you influence a story by the way you portray it. And it is also about whether art can be amoral.”

Portman applauded Haynes for his non-judgmental approach to the film’s storytelling Variety four months later, “[He] has a deep insight into human behavior. His female characters are complex and multi-dimensional.”

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What real-life events helped shape “May December”?

Haynes previously praised screenwriter Samy Burch‘s view of the story.

“I found myself respecting the distinction in Samy’s script from some of the famous examples of these tabloid stories, like Mary Kay Letourneau. “I was actually looking more for cinematic connections because the nature of the script is that you’re in a state of uncertainty about what to think of these people,” he shared. The Hollywood Reporter in May 2023. “The reliability you initially attribute to Elizabeth, the character Natalie Portman plays, begins to be destabilized as the film unfolds. You are in a constant state of reappraisal.”

He continued, “So I was more curious about how we tell this story and how we can make all those ways of reading the film enjoyable and give the audience the feeling that it was going to be a fun film to navigate through.”

How do Mary Kay Letourneau and Vili Fualaau relate to the film?

Letourneau made headlines in 1996 when news broke of her affair with Fualaau, who was in sixth grade at the time. After Letourneau went to prison, the couple exchanged vows in 2005 and raised their daughters, Audrey and Georgia. Letourneau and Fualaau then called it quits in 2019 and she died of colon cancer a year later.

Movie fans have pointed out the key similarities between May December and Letourneau’s personal life.