May December (R21)

118 minutes, opens on Feb 22
4 stars

The story: Over 20 years ago, Gracie (Julianne Moore), then 36 and with children of her own, met and had sexual relations with 13-year-old Joe (Charles Melton). After igniting a scandal and following a stay in prison, Gracie returns to Joe. They marry and start a family. In the present day, a biopic is being made of the relationship. Actress Elizabeth (Natalie Portman), who is playing Gracie in the movie, visits the couple. But the encounter unearths long-buried secrets. The screenplay, written by Samy Burch and Alex Mechanik and inspired by the real-life case of American sex offender and teacher Mary Kay Letourneau, has been nominated for an Oscar in the Best Original Screenplay category.

If tragedy plus time equals comedy, as the saying goes, then another saying could be made of the way the public forgives horrendously unequal relationships if a happy family results from it.

Perhaps “in child marriages, all’s well that ends well” or something similar.

The alternative title for May December might be The Mind Of A Predator. Gracie is the person first in focus and, in the opening scenes, she is shown to have a will so powerful, she can distort reality for not just herself, but also those around her.

The story then becomes a two-hander, a series of cautious volleys fired between the suburban mum and the famous actress, a woman eager to find a way into a character she feels compelled to play.

Director Todd Haynes, who made his name with woman-centred stories that involve complicated power dynamics (Carol, 2015; Far From Heaven, 2002, also starring Moore, with both films nominated for Oscars), frames the Gracie-Elizabeth exchanges as interrogations, disguised as polite banter.

The actress’ tools of emotional manipulation are no match for the weapons Gracie holds in her arsenal.

The reasons for Elizabeth’s compulsive need to get close make themselves clear by the end of the second act.

The actress, who, like everyone else at first seems gripped by a thirst for titillation, becomes a more complex and not entirely moral person after being in the grip of Gracie’s force field.

Joe, up till now a background figure, has his say at the film’s conclusion. Melton gives a heartrending performance as the figure at the centre of a struggle between two women who claim to be only listening to their hearts.

Without didacticism and enlivened by occasional flashes of humour, May December takes a moral stand on the question of whether sex crimes involving minors can be redeemed by reframing it as a love story, but with the added spice of the forbidden.

It is a story, but love has nothing to do with it.

Hot take: This tale unpacks the idea of love between a child and an adult, and makes it clear that no amount of reframing can hide the hideous inequalities.