Todd Haynes new with Natalie Portman and Julianne Moore, May December, is expected to be huge this awards season. And Netflix is giving it the prestige treatment, with a world premiere at Cannes and its spot as the Opening Night film at New York Film Festival this weekend.
Based very loosely on the life of Mary Kay Letourneau and penned by Samy Burch, May December centers on an actress who travels to Georgia to study the marriage between a woman she is set to play in a movie, and the woman’s much-younger husband. Their relationship had been the subject of an intense media scandal two decades earlier.
And if you are old enough to remember Letourneau, you know how her relationship with a 12-year-old boy and eventual marriage to him was all over the headlines. There were also numerous TV movies about Letourneau, so this whole thing rings so true.
We shouldn’t overlook the buzz for the performance by Riverdale star Charles Melton. It would be easy to get lost in the shuffle opposite amazing actresses such as Portmand and Moore, but apparently he stands up quite well.
May December opens in select theaters on November 17th, followed by Netflix on December 8th.