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 Directed by: Todd Haynes (Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story, I'm Not There, Carol) Screenplay by: Samy Burch (co-writer of Coyote vs. Acme) Starring: Natalie Portman (Black Swan, Jackie), Julianne Moore (Safe, Far from Heaven), Charles Melton (Riverdale) Cinematography by: Christopher Blauvelt (Kelly Reichardt's regular DP) Music by: Marcelo Zarvos, mostly adapted from Michel Legrand's soundtrack for Joseph Losey's The Go-Between (1971) Elizabeth Barry (Portman), a notable Juilliard-trained TV actress, makes a trip to Savannah, GA to research a role for an independent film production that she hopes will boost her profile. She meets up with Gracie Atherton-Yoo (Moore), the person she will be portraying, along with her noticeably younger husband Joe Yoo (Melton), who as a couple made tabloid headlines decades prior for reasons that become apparent early on into the movie. From this framework, the film will cover such wide-ranging themes as the acting profession, societal taboos & media/society's appetite for them, human empathy, coming-of-age, and our capacity to shape our own narratives with a striking balance of wicked, bleak humor & genuine tragedy, made manifest by a whole host of cinematic allusions pulled from Haynes's backpocket. All three leads give admirable, awards-worthy performances in completely different registers and which one you end up preferring probably amounts to a personality test. But don't sleep on the supporting cast of Gracie's children (Elizabeth Yu, Gabriel Chung, Piper Curda, a game Cory Michael Smith), all of whom also knock it out of the park, even given their very limited screentime. My assessment: This film's a total scream in that you will be screaming in laughter on the outside while screaming in horror on the inside. Currently in limited theatrical release, but most will probably catch it on Netflix when it comes out on December 1st. Coaaab fucked around with this message at 20:15 on Nov 24, 2023 |
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Nov 24, 2023 19:00
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I really liked this movie. Superstar performances all-around, would’ve loved to spend more time with these guys if i didnt also want to escape the theatre out of discomfort (my chair was closest to the exit too but thankfully I stayed seated). Scenes that were maybe outwardly comic were also clouded by real agony and sadness, the film was in some ways a real test, my sympathies bounced between characters several times Spoiler stuff: - Cant say I really got the butterfly stuff, seemed to be meant as a metaphor for something but idk what - What was in the box at the beginning? I didn’t catch the dialogue but it seemed important - I want to talk about Natalie portman’s character. When she’s reciting Juliane Moore’s letter in the mirror she does seem to have tapped into something real and significant, but at the end when we see the actual shoot, she’s just playing a pretty generic seductress with an exaggerated lisp. Makes it seem all the more tragic. For a long time I was rooting for her too, but after the scene between her and Charles Melton, which imo was a very cruel thing for her to do, I was just like “god, all of this damage she’s inflicted, it better have all been worth it, in the name of Art”. And imo, it wasnt
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Nov 26, 2023 06:04
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OK, I've been mulling about this film for about a week, here's some of my interpretationsJay Rust posted:Spoiler stuff: quote:- What was in the box at the beginning? I didn’t catch the dialogue but it seemed important quote:- I want to talk about Natalie portman’s character. When she’s reciting Juliane Moore’s letter in the mirror she does seem to have tapped into something real and significant, but at the end when we see the actual shoot, she’s just playing a pretty generic seductress with an exaggerated lisp. Makes it seem all the more tragic. For a long time I was rooting for her too, but after the scene between her and Charles Melton, which imo was a very cruel thing for her to do, I was just like “god, all of this damage she’s inflicted, it better have all been worth it, in the name of Art”. And imo, it wasnt Think your analysis is bang on, but I also want to say that I've been waiting for natalie portman to take on a role like this and god drat does she nail it
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Nov 26, 2023 06:39
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I'm so glad Ordinary People finally got a sequel. I don't know which was my favorite moment of the movie, but some options include: - The extremely dramatic score and camera zooms - "I don't think we have enough hot dogs." - "I can't tell if we're connecting or if I'm creating a bad memory for you." - Gracie's lovely little comment to make her daughter feel self-conscious about her arms during the dress fitting. - The sheer contrast between Joe's school assignment letter and Gracie's love letter, which were written at the same time. - "This is what grown-ups do." <-- jesus loving christ, Elizabeth - I love that the part of the indie film we see at the end seems even trashier than said made-for-TV movie, and that having had the childhood-trauma-explanation yanked out from under her, Elizabeth still doesn't know how to play Gracie beyond the physical imitation. A couple of other notes: - Gracie is an obvious monster but it's actually unbelievable how hosed up Elizabeth is too. I thought the director saying she had better come home was because he thought Gracie was rubbing off on her, but now I think it's because he knows she's a total headcase and would do something horrible if given enough time. - Where the gently caress did they get the money for this lifestyle? Her baking business is apparently more of a hobby than anything, and he doesn't seem to work. Was it from selling the rights to their story for the made-for-TV movie that Elizabeth is watching at one point? - Best domestic argument on film since Marriage Story. The way that they both just seem to regress during the conversation is staggering, although it's hard to tell if that's Gracie intentionally manipulating him again or just another facet to her mental issues. The performance from Charles Melton is extraordinary. Moore and Portman are also great, but I hadn't seen Melton in anything before so he just blew me away. surf rock fucked around with this message at 15:18 on Dec 6, 2023 |
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Dec 6, 2023 07:07
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Other moments that stuck with me that may have been overlooked: -"Just… don't touch any of the bait" is an incredibly sicko line -All the costuming in the movie, really good article that goes into it -The place where Joe kept the letter for all these years surf rock posted:Best spouse(-ish) argument on film since Marriage Story. The way that they both just regress during the conversation is staggering. Also, here's something to click on but only after you've watched the movie
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Dec 6, 2023 15:14
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Coaaab posted:Other moments that stuck with me that may have been overlooked: Wait, I missed those two. What were those?
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Dec 6, 2023 15:24
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So why’s it called May December?
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Dec 6, 2023 15:27
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A "May/December" romance is a euphemism for a relationship where one partner is considerably older (i.e. one in the "spring" of their life and the other in their "winter").
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Dec 6, 2023 15:33
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surf rock posted:Wait, I missed those two. What were those? -It was a Mortal Kombat box, but maybe I'm misremembering. Coaaab fucked around with this message at 16:33 on Dec 6, 2023 |
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Dec 6, 2023 16:30
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Coaaab posted:-It's what the pet shop owner says to Elizabeth when she wants to examine the stockroom where all the sexual goings-on transpired. It's a sicko pun because "bait" can also mean "jailbait". I also just remembered that after all these years, the owner is still reticent in talking about the scandal, but he still laminated the newspaper when his picture appeared on it. Oh wait, I did catch the second one! I didn't see what game it was, but I'm sure it was a Sega Genesis game case.
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Dec 6, 2023 16:35
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surf rock posted:
Gracie mentions that some media outlet (can't remember which she says) paid for their wedding and "that helped with the house" so they probably got money from some of these types of interviews. it's during the scene when they're looking at old pictures. Joe has a job, he's an x-ray technician. e: the music sting in this movie is insane and will haunt my dreams ONE YEAR LATER fucked around with this message at 18:04 on Dec 9, 2023 |
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Dec 9, 2023 18:02
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Yooooooooo, this movie was some fine white girl combat on display, feminine toxicity I think is the academic phrase. But Nat hosed that man just to get back at ol girl, that is combat. Both Julian Moore and Natalie Portman's characters are just like the worst things to have ever happened Charles Melton's character in like his whole himbo rear end life. Poor dude. He had the proof of her intentions (upthread mentioned the contrast between the peace assignment and the "burn this" love letter), but when he talks to her she firmly plants him as the seducer which is omg just the worst. Haven't seen this deep abuse on display since Whiplash.
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Dec 10, 2023 04:51
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surf rock posted:The performance from Charles Melton is extraordinary. Moore and Portman are also great, but I hadn't seen Melton in anything before so he just blew me away. I liked him in The Sun is Also a Star, but could have never imagined he was capable of something like this if it or him as Reggie in Riverdale was the only other thing I'd seen him in. It's an extreme leap and I'm now real curious to see where his career goes from here
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Dec 10, 2023 13:46
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Melton really carries himself like a young teenager throughout the film, aloof and introverted but also rather subservient. It's very telling when Portman has the comment about him having this confidence or assertiveness (can't remember the exact word she uses) on the phone in one scene, when he really doesn't. Both women are projecting this strength and maturity onto him that he lacks, but then try to paint him -- being the man in the relationship -- as far more adult and in-control that he is. I'm curious what the motif of smoking is about. When he's with his dad, he ultimately decides to mirror his dad and picks up a cigarette. Then with his own son he gives into peer pressure and smokes a joint. Later we see Elizabeth complain to Georgie about smoking and to blow it in the other direction (and is asthmatic). Not quite clear though on the meaning behind it all, other than that it shows Joe as, if nothing else, impressionable and attempting to do what other men do?
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Dec 11, 2023 17:50
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I think it's another example of him never having had a common teenage experience - in this case, of trying a cigarette.
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Dec 11, 2023 19:26
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TrixRabbi posted:I'm curious what the motif of smoking is about. When he's with his dad, he ultimately decides to mirror his dad and picks up a cigarette. Then with his own son he gives into peer pressure and smokes a joint. Later we see Elizabeth complain to Georgie about smoking and to blow it in the other direction (and is asthmatic). Not quite clear though on the meaning behind it all, other than that it shows Joe as, if nothing else, impressionable and attempting to do what other men do?
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Dec 12, 2023 01:06
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drat this was a good movie. Revels in being a trashy near lifetime esque movie while having a cast that crushes the performances and a richer script on the subject matter. The music does so much work, got me laughing a few times with those stings. The scene where we meet Georgie is also funny as hell. A great look at how broken so many people were by the incident and Gracies' ongoing abuse as she plays naive and innocent. Even her crying about the cake feels manipulative. Poor Joe. Melton stole the show. The scene where he smokes with his son is one of the big highlights of the movie. My read on the end scene Elizabeth was full of poo poo the whole time, she is the package of poo poo delivered to the door this time around. Elizabeth was such a scumbag lol.
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Dec 14, 2023 20:19
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Coaaab posted:-It's what the pet shop owner says to Elizabeth when she wants to examine the stockroom where all the sexual goings-on transpired. It's a sicko pun because "bait" can also mean "jailbait". I also just remembered that after all these years, the owner is still reticent in talking about the scandal, but he still laminated the newspaper when his picture appeared on it. Went back to check, it's actually a VHS box for Cops lmao and it prominently features the words "BUSTED BIG TIME"
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Dec 15, 2023 16:33
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the thing no one mentions about the hot dog line is that it cuts from that right to a grill surrounded and covered in about 60 hot dogs
SEX HAVER 40000 fucked around with this message at 22:00 on Dec 18, 2023 |
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Dec 18, 2023 21:21
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Jay Rust posted:
The cocoons\butterflies represent the natural development cycle of a growing thing, and Joe's fascination with protecting that process links back to what was done to him. But I also think they represent more in the film. All throughout the movie we're watching this reawakening of buried enmity in the town for Gracie and what she did; she was able to get her life in order at one point, but that order couldn't possibly be permanent because the degree of transgression and unresolved trauma was too great, much in the same way a cocoon can't stay a cocoon forever, because something hidden inside is desperate to get out. Elizabeth might be a bastard for the way she goes about disrupting the peace of the small community, but in some ways the aggravation she provides is a necessary part of this horrible, inevitable thing- a thing which gestated in the minds of everyone effected for decades- being born. Is it good for anyone that it's being born? Who knows. It's just the "then" part of an if-then statement. Then, too, I think they represent both Elizabeth and the viewer's growing awareness & existential dismay that we can't figure Gracie out. Is she a victim who perpetuated a cycle of abuse? Is she a principled iconoclast who violated social mores and doesn't give a poo poo what we think? Is she a 4D chess playing predator? Is she just a damaged eccentric making the best of the multigenerational mess she made after falling in love with and screwing a 13-year-old student when she was 38? We and Elizabeth can't create a definition of Gracie that fully encompasses her, which is disturbing, due to the severity of her transgression. We like, as a rule, to understand how and why things happen. Removing ambiguity brings comfort and predictability. The bigger the risk or violation of the established order, the more we want it thoroughly dissected and simply presented, so we can manage the threat in our minds. I might be passively curious about what my upstairs neighbor is doing when my ceiling starts thumping at 1am but am actively engaged in the process of understanding how to avoid cancer. Gracie- or what Gracie did- falls more on the cancer side of severity; if we take the movie as an exhaustive inquiry, we're faced with the investigator, having sifted through all the evidence, shrugging and saying "In conclusion, no conclusion. Who knows why she did that. Guess it could happen again, at any time, done by anyone, and we won't see it coming. Be safe out there!" I think that's why Todd Haynes chose to have that melodramatically ominous sting over otherwise innocuous scenes and transitions. There's a Lovecraftian quality to Elizabeth's- and our- investigation into Gracie; the more we dig through ordered human reality, careering toward truth, the closer we get to a hidden, indifferent order of the universe which we won't be able to grasp. You can't see the trap you're walking into, but you can feel the unseen and therefore unplaceable threat to your peace of mind it represents, hence the unsettling music while Elizabeth is leaving the airport, or traveling to interview someone, etc. I also think it's why Elizabeth choses to play Gracie so broadly in the end. Faced with the uncertain horror of reality, and her own inability to encompass it, the shaken egoist chooses camp as a defense mechanism. EDIT: I also think Elizabeth's portrayal of Gracie in the final scene was a bit of revenge after Gracie's clapback at the graduation. Gracie wanted to be understood by the public (you could argue she blew her entire life up again in order to achieve that end), so Elizabeth makes her an even bigger joke than the previous Lifetime movie did. mysterious frankie fucked around with this message at 15:38 on Dec 19, 2023 |
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Dec 19, 2023 15:26
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I liked the ending but the execution was very clunky. "That bombshell my son dropped on you last night is actually bull poo poo, now gently caress off." Especially since we as viewers never had time to really deal with it. One thing the movie did particularly well that I liked was how Gracie casually mentioned that one brother is a rear admiral and another is a big league pitching coach. Those are big time jobs so it stands to reason that she's not so aw shucks as she makes herself out to be. And one thing I didn't catch: Joe mentions that his sister had asthma but I don't recall any previous mention of her.
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Dec 20, 2023 07:55
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I thought the writing and some of the performances in this movie were really outstanding. The weird, very fragile world the family lived in that existed both at a far remove and under a microscope was presented so well. They were walking on eggshells in their own minds, and the way it was conveyed through dialogue and performance really moved me. It also managed to make me laugh frequently through out with the absurd contrasts and observations that Julianne Moore's character makes. Obviously Charles Melton will take everyone by surprise because most people watching this will not be familiar with him and does such a great job in some heavy scenes. Natalie Portman's actress character I found less interesting, both in her acting and as a take-down/examination of Hollywood and over sensationalized media. I didn't find much insightful there and the movie/ending I thought was just way too obvious. The music sets a really specific tone and was used so well to create a kind of self-conscious campy reality that was a good summation of Gracie's life. I wish the visuals matched but I felt they were the weakest part of the movie, and I did not care for the fake film grain that is laid over the footage. Overall I thought it was mostly good, and one of the better new movies I've seen recently. live with fruit posted:I liked the ending but the execution was very clunky. "That bombshell my son dropped on you last night is actually bull poo poo, now gently caress off." Especially since we as viewers never had time to really deal with it.
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Jan 6, 2024 18:27
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I appreciate the movie more after reading this thread, but I still feel like it was all over the place. The premise of the "hosed up family with a lot of trauma and a manipulative psycopath at the helm" subplot was interesting and the "actress gets weirdly obsessive about her role" as well, but taken together it's all kind of empty. Tonally it just feels weird too, like it quickly establishes a "this is a lurid story" theme (with the music, the lighting, the whip zoom) which was great but then it kind of forgets about it. The reveals at the end (Gracie was still talking to Georgie; Elizabeth's movie was more in line with the earlier TV movie than something requiring a Daniel Day-Lewis-level performance) were cool but the final message seems to be that just like Elizabeth's obsession is pointless, it's equally pointless to try to see something beneath the surface here, some people are just manipulative and evil. Is that what it was all about? Am I missing something here?
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Jan 12, 2024 16:03
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Sometimes affluent white girls engage in Mortal Kombat and this is what it looks like. No moral, no lesson, pedophilia is bad. Wife mentioned that they fattened up Charles Melton for the role and he didn't look as hot as when he was in Sun is Also a Star. I figured they had to, otherwise ladies (derogatory) would be too sympathetic to Julian Moore's character.
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Jan 12, 2024 16:11
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olorum posted:I appreciate the movie more after reading this thread, but I still feel like it was all over the place. The premise of the "hosed up family with a lot of trauma and a manipulative psycopath at the helm" subplot was interesting and the "actress gets weirdly obsessive about her role" as well, but taken together it's all kind of empty. Tonally it just feels weird too, like it quickly establishes a "this is a lurid story" theme (with the music, the lighting, the whip zoom) which was great but then it kind of forgets about it. Art doesn't need to have a final message. It's a very reductive way to view anything, but especially film which is a collaboration between many people who may have different interpretations to what they're doing. The ending is very ambiguous. We remain unsure of what goes on in Gracie's mind. She manipulates people constantly, but also is a very damaged person who may have had a completely different life if she herself wasn't abused and raised in a super sexist family that only seemed to value her youth and beauty. Her interpretation of even very simple things that happen to her seem to be at odds with everyone else in the entire world. Elizabeth is looking for an explanation and wants to believe in the most shocking and simple thing, just as we are in real life when faced with a story like this. It's doesn't seem to have a very prescriptive moral message.
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Jan 13, 2024 21:45
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Also, pay attention to how Elizabeth objectifies and revictimizes Joe under her declared auspice of creating Art through a genuine performance. The movie itself (May/December) becomes more and more interested in Joe's interiority as it goes on, which makes it more obvious how he's treated like a foil by both of the women for their own constructions of themselves. Remember his outburst at Elizabeth, about how this isn't a story, it's his life. It's a statement about the inherent narcissism in "storytelling" via archetype rather than actual sensitivity. And after all her "research," the offensively-insensitive film Elizabeth makes (notice how the actor portraying Joe is now a hunky 19-year-old instead of one of the child actors) drives that home.
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Jan 14, 2024 21:45
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Mullitt posted:Art doesn't need to have a final message. It's a very reductive way to view anything, but especially film which is a collaboration between many people who may have different interpretations to what they're doing. I wasn't trying to imply that the movie should have a moral message, but the movie invites interpretation and then shoots you down for doing so. As a meta-comment on our fascination with true crime and the pointlessness of psychological profiling it's just very unsatisfying. That's why I asked if I was missing something because this interpretation just makes me annoyed lol. It reminds me a bit of Funny Games where the more I thought about it the more I felt like I was being trolled
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Jan 15, 2024 11:39
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i thought this interview was very cool https://letterboxd.com/journal/todd-haynes-may-december-watchlist-interview/ this might have been the funniest movie i saw all year
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Jan 15, 2024 20:55
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Thanks for the link, that was very interesting. Nice to read about all the inspirations that went into this (Persona was obvious but the other ones less so), also how particular he is with zooms and cuts - I might need to rewatch and pay particular attention to that
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Jan 16, 2024 11:47
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