May December (2023)
Director: Todd Haynes
Screenwriters: Samy Burch, Alex Mechanik
Starring: Natalie Portman, Julianne Moore, Charles Melton, Gabriel Chung, Elizabeth Yu

Todd Haynes’ films are hard to pin down. Ever the subversive, the renegade of the new queer cinema movement has a proven track record of destabilizing conventional wisdoms surrounding everything from sex to gender to celebrity to domesticity and the American nuclear family. Unafraid to wear his influences on his sleeve, and to subject them to satire and scrutiny, Haynes wields homage, melodrama, and allegory in his deconstruction of the social, political, and aesthetic contexts in which his characters dwell. His is a cinema of transgression that gets its teeth from a sort of reflexive formalism, for his films frequently call attention to their own artifice. 

Take 2002’s Far From Heaven, for example. In many ways, the film, which centers on a 1950s suburban housewife whose secret affair threatens the sanguine domestic lifestyle she is expected to uphold, is a straight-up remake of Douglas Sirk’s 1955 melodrama All That Heaven Allows, complete with all the soap and glitziness that defined Hays Code-era Hollywood. The catch is that Haynes’ film is, nonetheless, thoroughly modern in its details—by peppering in subject matter that would have been considered too taboo back in the 50s (even for Sirk, who was considered a rebel in his time), namely interracial and homosexual relationships, Haynes turns the entire genre on its head. Films such as Far From Heaven demonstrate Haynes’ unique ability to firmly situate his work relative to established cinematic traditions—and to then boldly defy them. In this way, Todd Haynes is a filmmaker who always seems to have his finger on the pulse, his films conversing with the past to illuminate the present. 

The present unto which May December, Haynes’ latest, arrives feels particularly elusive—and, fittingly, so does the film. Written by Samy Burch and loosely inspired by the public scandal surrounding Mary Kay Letourneau, the screenplay orbits three central characters: Gracie Atherton-Yoo (Julianne Moore), a suburban pariah who was once the subject of a tabloid frenzy surrounding her predatory sexual involvement with a 13-year-old boy; Joe Atherton-Yoo (Charles Melton), the boy, now in his 30s and married with children to Gracie; and Elizabeth Berry (Natalie Portman), a B-list actress who comes to study Gracie and her family in preparation to play her in a movie about the scandal. 

On first glance, such a premise seems tailor-made for the Netflix-patented true-crime-content-machine; and yet May December cleverly co-opts these vapid true-crime precepts, and our twisted attendance to them. Where Far From Heaven leverages melodrama to challenge the genre’s largely sanitized depiction of domestic life in the 1950s, May December weaponizes viewers’ learned appetite for sensationalism to unravel the tabloid mythologies that form around deviant crimes and their perpetrators—and which often exploit the victims. 

Portman’s Elizabeth is the doorway through which Haynes instantly implicates the viewer. Her morbid curiosity to get to the bottom of Gracie and Joe’s strange dynamic largely matches our own. However, as she ingratiates herself among the family, it quickly becomes clear that Elizabeth’s intentions are far more perverse. As Gracie’s mask begins to slip, so too does Elizabeth’s, revealing her obsessive, megalomaniacal fantasy of coveting, or perhaps recreating, Gracie’s and Joe’s lived experience. The ensuing dissonance, heightened by the melodramatic register in which the film operates, not only makes for an unnaturalness that is often quite funny (Marcelo Zarvos’s ostentatious score is a big part of this), but it also makes space for thorny ethical questions surrounding spectatorship, representation, autonomy, and consent—none of which feel overly didactic. 

Instead, in true Haynes fashion, ambiguities stay ambiguous, and the viewer is left to dwell in the gray areas. Neither patronizing nor flattering these characters, Haynes complicates prevailing assumptions surrounding Gracie and Joe by lending them both a degree of agency, and in doing so undermines whatever vague suggestion is made toward a simple sociological explanation for their relationship (e.g. personality disorders, abuse begetting abuse). Actors and outcasts alike, these are characters whose identities are defined by performance, whether of normalcy, security, sincerity, or innocence. Like the many mirrors Haynes frames them in, Portman, Moore, and, perhaps most impressively, Melton reflect and belie their characters’ superficial personas. 

May December comes at a strange moment in time when the popularity of true-crime content feels at odds with flattened conceptions of moral goodness and badness in popular media. What makes the film feel particularly incisive and contemporary—infinitely more so than the titles it is destined to be algorithmically paired with on the Netflix home screen—are the ways in which it converses with this moment and indeed the viewer. Haynes’ latest is, once again, hard to pin down; but it is even harder to forget. 

Score: 22/24

May December is nominated for 4 Golden Globes.

Written by Connell Oberman

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The Cannes International Film Festival will premiere new films from influential British filmmakers Jonathan Glazer and Ken Loach, as well as Japanese Palme d’Or winner Hirokazu Kore-eda, as part of its 2023 festival line-up.

Announced by general delegate Thierry Frémaux and incoming president Iris Knobloch during a press conference from Paris, France on Thursday 13th April, the 2023 Cannes International Film Festival will also debut new films from Todd Haynes, Wes Anderson and Wim Wenders.

Of the films listed to be in competition at the festival, six have been directed by women. This is a new record. Press and visitors can expect new films from former Palme d’Or-nominated directors Alice Rohrwacher (Happy as Lazzaro) and Jessica Hausner (Little Joe) among others.

The opening film of the festival will be Jeanne du Barry from French actress and director Maïwenn, about the last official mistress of Louis XV (set to be played by Johnny Depp).

Jeanne du Barry will be presented out of competition alongside Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon, Kim Jee-won’s Cobweb, Sam Levinson’s The Idol, and James Mangold’s Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny.

There will also be a special screening of the latest film from British filmmaker Steve McQueen (12 Years a Slave), Occupied City, a documentary about life in Amsterdam, Netherlands during the Nazi occupation of World War II.

The debut of Jonathan Glazer’s adaptation of Martin Amis’ “The Zone of Interest” will mark the first feature release by the Sexy Beast director since 2013’s critically-acclaimed Under the Skin. The Zone of Interest tells of a Nazi officer falling in love with the wife of the commander of the Auschwitz concentration camp and will star Toni Erdmann’s Sandra Hüller.

Meanwhile, Kes director Ken Loach will debut his first film since before to the pandemic. The British filmmaker, last at Cannes with Sorry We Missed You, directed Palme d’Or winners The Wind that Shakes the Barley (2006) and I, Daniel Blake (2016). His latest film, The Old Oak, will see him reunite with screenwriter Paul Laverty to tell of the tensions between UK immigrants and the small north east village they are housed in.

Hirokazu Kore-eda, whose films have been nominated for the Palme d’Or six times, is another former Palme d’Or winner (Shoplifters) returning to the south of France in 2023. Kore-eda’s latest film, Monster, is currently being kept top secret, though it will reunite the Japanese director with his Shoplifters star Sakura Ando.

The only other Palme d’Or winner to return in 2023 will be Turkish filmmaker Nuri Bilge Ceylan, whose film Winter Sleep won the prestigious award in 2014. Ceylan also won Best Director at Cannes in 2008 for Winter Sleep.

The line-up for the 2023 Cannes International Film Festival is as follows:

In Competition

CLUB ZERO Jessica HAUSNER
THE ZONE OF INTEREST Jonathan GLAZER
FALLEN LEAVES Aki KAURISMAKI
LES FILLES D’OLFA Kaouther BEN HANIA
ASTEROID CITY Wes ANDERSON
ANATOMIE D’UNE CHUTE Justine TRIET
MONSTER KORE-EDA Hirokazu
IL SOL DELL’AVVENIRE Nanni MORETTI
L’ÉTÉ DERNIER Catherine BREILLAT
KURU OTLAR USTUNE Nuri Bilge CEYLAN
LA CHIMERA Alice ROHRWACHER
LA PASSION DE DODIN BOUFFANT TRAN ANH Hùng
RAPITO Marco BELLOCCHIO
MAY DECEMBER Todd HAYNES
JEUNESSE WANG Bing
THE OLD OAK Ken LOACH
BANEL E ADAMA Ramata-Toulaye SY
PERFECT DAYS Wim WENDERS
FIREBRAND Karim AÏNOUZ

Un Certain Regard

LOS DELINCUENTES Rodrigo MORENO
HOW TO HAVE SEX Molly MANNING WALKER
GOODBYE JULIA Mohamed KORDOFANI
KADIB ABYAD Asmae EL MOUDIR
SIMPLE COMME SYLVAIN Monia CHOKRI
CROWRÃ João SALAVIZA; Renée NADER MESSORA
LOS COLONOS Felipe GÁLVEZ
OMEN Baloji TSHIANI
THE BREAKING ICE Anthony CHEN
ROSALIE Stéphanie DI GIUSTO
THE NEW BOY Warwick THORNTON
IF ONLY I COULD HIBERNATE Zoljargal PUREVDASH
HOPELESS KIM Chang-hoon
TERRESTRIAL VERSES Ali ASGARI; Alireza KHATAMI
RIEN À PERDRE Delphine DELOGET
LES MEUTES Kamal LAZRAQ

Out of Competition

INDIANA JONES AND THE DIAL OF DESTINY James MANGOLD
COBWEB KIM Jee-woon
THE IDOL Sam LEVINSON
KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON Martin SCORSESE

Midnight Screenings

KENNEDY Anurag KASHYAP
OMAR LA FRAISE Elias BELKEDDAR
ACIDE Just PHILIPPOT

Cannes Premiere

KUBI Takeshi KITANO
BONNARD, PIERRE ET MARTHE Martin PROVOST
CERRAR LOS OJOS Victor ERICE
LE TEMPS D’AIMER Katell QUILLÉVÉRÉ

Special Screenings

MAN IN BLACK WANG Bing
OCCUPIED CITY Steve MCQUEEN
ANSELM (DAS RAUSCHEN DER ZEIT) Wim WENDERS
RETRATOS FANTASMAS Kleber MENDONÇA FILHO

The 2023 Cannes International Film Festival will take place 16-27 May, 2023.

Dark Waters (2020)
Director: Todd Haynes
Screenwriter: Mario Correa, Matthew Micheal Carnahan
Starring: Mark Ruffalo, Anne Hathaway, Tim Robbins, Bill Camp, Victor Garber, Mare Winningham, Bill Pullman

Mark Ruffalo is no stranger to the ‘They Knew’ thriller genre having previously starred in the 2015 Best Picture Oscar winner Spotlight. And, much like that earlier critical success, the actor’s latest film Dark Waters turns from your garden variety legal thriller into something much bigger and much scarier than it may at first seem, his character Robert Bilott advancing from a conspiracy theory handed to him during a family favour, to attempting to prove that DuPont is responsible for polluting a water supply.

Dark Waters makes no secrets of playing on elements of the horror side of the thriller genre. Its opening, which depicts a group of teenagers in 1975 breaking into DuPont land to swim in a lake, reads like the start of a classic horror film, encouraging you to wonder which monster may be awaiting them in the water. Upon being chased away by the EPA during their discovery of a deformed frog, we are left to contemplate how Dark Waters is about a horrific monster, only this one isn’t supernatural and is instead a very powerful real life villain.

Based on the New York Times magazine article “The Lawyer Who Became DuPont’s Worst Nightmare” by Nathaniel Rich, Dark Waters is the 2020 Oscar season’s second major film release to be based upon a magazine article (the other being A Beautiful Day in the Neighbourhood), and is therefore tied to some over-drawn conventions of the legal thriller genre. As such, Ruffalo’s character Bilott goes through the motions of any lawyer uncovering something vitally important on film – he is presented with information, fights his own conscience and everybody sensibly telling him to walk away, and then he finally goes after the truth, teaching us values as he learns them for himself.

Thankfully, the film does not become a victim to the ‘true life’ investigation film tropes that we saw earlier this year in Just Mercy. Director Todd Haynes has you so on edge that you hold your breath while Bilott looks through boxes and boxes of evidence. You wish for him to find just a slither of something to go on, because we have already been shown the real evidence in the form of small-town farmer Will Tennant’s (Camp’s) diseased animals and his children’s discoloured teeth.

When Bilott gathers more and more evidence, we begin to see what is really going on, and it’s much bigger than any one farm in a rural community.

In a revelation brought on by an innocent looking advertisement for a frying pan, Bilott jumps back like he has seen a ghost. DuPont is the monster of this monster movie.

Shot in yellow and grey tones, everything and everyone looks sick and toxic in Dark Waters. Bilott’s increasing paranoia and shakes gives the film the feel of an infestation horror, and the more it progresses and the more that the character uncovers, the more you realise that what you’re watching on the screen has affected you without you even knowing it. And, much like the panicked expression and literal loss of breath that accompanies Rufallo’s performance at vital moments, you are left gobsmacked as you realise there’s nothing you can do about it; that is just one example of what large corporations have done and continue to do.

Dark Waters is by no means a perfect film however. Anne Hathaway as Bilott’s wife Sarah is given very little to do, and as such an impassioned speech in which she tells Robert’s boss ‘not to talk to her like she is the wife’ (when she has spent the last 90 minutes of the film being ‘the wife’) feels forced if not entirely fake. Although a lawyer herself, she is included in the film to simply support and look after the kids, the most important of her moments being included only to push the film to its next plot point, herself acting as a plot device and little more. This characterisation notably let down both the film and Anne Hathaway, an actress usually more reliable when choosing meaningful roles.

Generally, despite issues with Hathaway’s characterisation, Dark Waters is a refreshing take on the legal thriller genre, and one of those films that demonstrates the power that any one person can have. But take note, for there is no comfort given, there is no uplifting resolution in which our hero beats the bad guy. In fact, there are so many false endings and near misses that you, like Billot, feel exhausted by the end. Even now, in 2020, the fight against DuPont is not over – a fact that will leave you gasping as you leave, just as you have the whole way through.

Dark Waters does not offer hope or comfort but demands that you keep fighting. It is a meaningful film largely presented to a very high standard that is likely to be a problem for a lot of the people who deserve for it to be a problem. A moving portrait of a society that has lost its control of big business and must act instantly to change the structures in place.

17/24