Picture: May December Productions 2022 LLC
May December is an upcoming movie starring Natalie Portman and Julianne Moore that Netflix has just acquired the rights to at the Cannes Film Festival. The figure is said to be a whopping $11 million and just for North America.
The movie was directed by Oscar-nominee Todd Haynes (Far From Heaven, The Velvet Underground) and written by Samy Burch with the script selected for 2020’s The Black List.
Haynes commented on the Netflix news right on location at Cannes:
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Director Todd Haynes on Netflix’s overnight purchase of ‘May December’: “It’s just made all of us feel emboldened…” #Cannes
Read about the deal here: https://t.co/okIO51F6Pm pic.twitter.com/iRsX3lvrXm
— Deadline Hollywood (@DEADLINE) May 23, 2023
Netflix’s May December premiered at the Cannes Film Festival and, at the time of writing, has an 89% Rotten Tomatoes score based on 35 critic reviews. The Independent wrote: “May December is a film without frills or special effects. It’s a closely focused character study, galvanised by the tremendous performances from Portman and Moore, which delves into areas more conventional dramas don’t go near.”
Times also praised the film: “An intensely compelling film about Hollywood vanity, interpersonal sadism and the human capacity for self-deception.”
Filming for the movie took place in Savannah, Georgia, between October and November 2022, with the movie having a runtime of 113 minutes.
What’s the plot of May December?
Here’s the synopsis for Netflix’s May December:
“May December refers to the nature of a scandalous romance between a married woman and a 13-year-old that was a tabloid staple when it happened 20 years ago. As happened in the May-December romance between teacher Mary Kay Letourneau and Vili Fualaau, Moore’s character served time for seducing an underaged teen, but eventually married the youth, and they moved away to raise a family and live quietly. The film’s trigger is the interaction between the couple and an actress (Portman) who travels to Maine to study the life of the woman she will play in a film. Sparks fly between the three of them as unresolved issues resurface in a romantic drama.
Twenty years after their notorious tabloid romance gripped the nation, Gracie Atherton-Yu and her husband Joe (twenty-three years her junior) brace themselves for their twins to graduate from high school. When Hollywood actress Elizabeth Berry comes to spend time with the family to better understand Gracie, who she will be playing in a film, family dynamics unravel under the pressure of the outside gaze. Joe, never having processed what happened in his youth, starts to confront the reality of life as an empty-nester at thirty-six. And as Elizabeth and Gracie study each other, the similarities and differences between the two women begin to ebb and flow. Set in picturesque and comfortable Camden, Maine, May December is an exploration of truth, storytelling, and the difficulties (or impossibility) of fully understanding another person.”
In an interview with Haynes, the prolific director said the movie “explores one of the great capacities of the human species: our categorical refusal to look ourselves in the face.”
No trailer for the movie has been released as of yet, although a short clip was released to the public during the 2023 Cannes Film Festival:
More clips of the cast and crew can be found on the official page for the movie on the Festival-Cannes.com website.
Who is cast in May December?
Netflix’s May December is led by stars Natalie Portman and Julianne Moore. Portman, who has only starred in one Netflix Original called Annihilation (although it wasn’t available in the US), plays the role of Elizabeth and Moore (who starred in Netflix’s The Woman in the Window and narrated The Mind: Explained) plays Gracie.
They are joined by Charles Melton, Jocelyn Shelfo, Cory Michael Smith, and Piper Curda.
What’s the Netflix release date for May December?
Netflix hasn’t announced the release date for May December yet, but we are expecting some time this year. We must note that Netflix will only distribute the movie in North America.
