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Random freezes, missing sound and display glitches usually trace back to one bad driver. Find and replace yours safely.Free scan · under a minuteMay December is a drama that knows how to make its own excess funny—and then lets the laughter curdle. Todd Haynes’s film is a beguiling, unsettling study of performance, public fascination and the private lives hidden behind a notorious story. Its campy melodrama is part of the point, not a signal that the film is simply a comedy or a conventional true-crime retelling.
What is May December about?
Twenty years after a tabloid romance gripped the nation, an actress arrives to research the married couple at its center. Her presence puts pressure on their present as well as their past: she is observing them for a role, but the act of observation itself becomes part of the story.
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May December | $14.90 | Buy on Amazon |
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May To December - Series 1 | $6.73 | Buy on Amazon |
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May to December - Series 2 [DVD] [1990] [1989] | $91.85 | Buy on Amazon |
Natalie Portman plays the visiting actress, Elizabeth Berry. Julianne Moore and Charles Melton play the couple, Gracie and Joe. The setup creates two intertwined dramas: the consequences of a relationship made into public spectacle, and the uneasy process of turning other people’s lives into performance material. The title points toward an age-gap relationship, but the film’s interest extends beyond the romance to the story built around it and the people still living inside its aftermath.
Netflix’s official synopsis describes an actress researching a married couple whose notorious romance once gripped the nation. The film is fictional, not a documentary or factual retelling. TIME’s contemporary review discusses the Mary Kay Letourneau case as a point of comparison; that comparison does not make the film’s characters real people.
#1 Best Overall
Is May December a comedy or a drama?
It is best understood as a drama whose comedy and melodrama keep destabilizing one another. Netflix Tudum says the film “walks a tightrope between melodrama and comedy.” Cannes, in its May 20, 2023 interview, frames it as “an introspective romantic drama on the scandalous past of a famous couple.” Those descriptions point to the same productive tension: scenes can feel deliberately heightened or darkly funny, while the human unease beneath them remains difficult to laugh away.
The camp is not a detour from the drama. It draws attention to how people perform, how stories acquire an audience, and how a private life can become a public script. The film does not settle into a single tone, so viewers looking for either an uncomplicated comedy or a solemn, straight-ahead account of a scandal may find its shifts uncomfortable. That uncertainty is central to its effect.
TIME’s May 21, 2023 review describes a blend of dark, glittering comedy, cerebral drama and soapy melodrama. That is one critic’s reading, rather than a claim of critical consensus, but it captures why the film can feel both entertaining and disquieting.
Rank #2
Why the performances and point of view matter
Portman’s actress gives the film a second lens on its central couple. Elizabeth is not only learning about Gracie and Joe; she is choosing what to notice and how to reproduce it. That makes the research visit a drama about representation as well as an intrusion into a marriage. The audience, too, is watching people whose past has already been packaged as a story.
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Moore and Melton anchor the couple’s private present, while the premise keeps their public history in view. The balance between the actress’s performance and the couple’s experience is part of the film’s tension: attention shifts between the person studying a story and the people who have to live with it. The result is less a mystery about what happened than a study of what happens when a notorious past is revisited and performed.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.Who is likely to enjoy it?
May December is a strong fit if you enjoy dramas that use heightened style and dark humor without offering easy emotional distance. Its appeal depends in part on whether you like tonal uncertainty: the film may make you laugh at a scene’s theatricality, then leave you questioning what that laughter means.
- Choose it for the campy, soapy edge if you like melodrama that is knowingly heightened rather than restrained.
- Expect the actress’s research and performance to matter alongside the couple’s history; this is not only a story about a scandal.
- Skip it if you want a straightforward true-crime account or a comedy that resolves its discomfort into uncomplicated fun.
Credits, runtime and streaming
Todd Haynes directed May December; Samy Burch wrote the screenplay, with Alex Mechanik sharing the story credit. The film stars Natalie Portman, Julianne Moore and Charles Melton. Cannes lists it in the 2023 Official Selection.
Netflix’s title page currently lists the film to stream, though availability can vary by country and change over time. Netflix Media Center gives December 1, 2023 as its Netflix release date. Netflix lists the runtime as 1 hour 57 minutes and the rating as R. Netflix also reports that Burch and Mechanik were nominated for Best Original Screenplay at the 96th Academy Awards.
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