Posts Tagged ‘black comedy-drama’

MAY DECEMBER: 4 STARS. “a satire of our fascination with tabloid criminality.”

“May December,” a new melodrama starring Natalie Portman and Julianne Moore, and now streaming on Netflix, is a sorta-kinda retelling of the tabloid story of Mary Kay Letourneau, a Seattle school teacher sent to jail for having a sexual relationship with a sixth-grade student.

In the film, Portman is Elizabeth Berry, a television actress best known for playing a veterinarian on a show called “Nora’s Ark,” who travels to Savannah, Georgia to do research for what she hopes will be a breakout role in a gritty true crime drama.

She will portray on Gracie Atherton-Yoo (Moore), a thirty-six-year-old woman who had a sexual affair with a seventh grader. Caught having relations with the middle schooler in the stock room of the pet store where they both worked, Gracie did jail time, gave birth to the couple’s twins while behind bars, and now, twenty-four years later, lives with the grown-up Joe Yoo (Charles Melton), who is approximately the same age as her eldest son from her first marriage.

Notebook in hand, Elizabeth is a fly on the wall, logging the action like a student at a lecture as she learns about what makes Gracie and Joe tick. But as the couple prepares to become empty nesters as the twins depart for college, Elizabeth’s presence stirs up old ghosts that cause Gracie and Joe to relive the more sensational and troubled aspects of their lives. “She’s getting on my last nerve,” says Gracie. “She’s just everywhere I look.”

A mix of the dramatic and the mundane, “May December” is brought to life by the psychological interplay between Portman and Moore. For example, a make-up tutorial between Gracie and Elizabeth is a stunner. What could have been a TikTok style guide to applying lipstick and foundation becomes a tense transformation as Elizabeth comes one step closer to literally getting under Gracie’s skin. Elizabeth isn’t content with just taking notes, or wearing Gracie’s make-up, she wants to become Gracie.

It is method acting on a Talented Mr. Ripley level as the actress surrenders herself to the role. Portman is terrific, mimicking Moore in interesting, small ways, like adopting her lisp and during the make-up scene, physically resembling her in a truly uncanny way.

Moore has the showier role, playing a complicated woman who is confident in public, but prone to crying jags in private. Moore plays her with a combination of steeliness and vulnerability that can imbue a line like, “I don’t think we have enough hot dogs,” when accompanied by a dramatic music sting, with a deeper meaning that displays the A-type personality that lies at the core of the character.

Both hand in Oscar caliber performances, the kind of above the title work that gets attention, but it is Melton, as a man essentially tethered to Gracie for his entire life, who is most emotionally affecting. Elizabeth’s visit has forced him, reluctantly, to reassess his life and choices, and Melton’s understated, melancholic performance catches his quest for understanding. “This isn’t a story,” he says to Elizabeth. “It’s my life.”

“May December” is, I suppose, a satire of true crime and our fascination with tabloid criminality, of how the worst of human behavior can be exploited as entertainment, but mostly, it is a chance to watch a trio of great performances that draw us into this uneasy story.

JUDY AND PUNCH: 3 ½ STARS. “a sly story of love and vengeance.”

“Judy and Punch,” a new film starring Mia Wasikowska and now on VOD, is set in mid-17th century. There’s lace collars and cuffs, petticoats, breeches and jerkins on display but make no mistake, this is a timely tale of ideology over logic, of justice, revenge and puppetry.

The action begins in Seaside, an English town the movie tells us is nowhere near the sea. It’s the first clue that not everything is right in this small settlement. It’s a place where women are stoned to death on the suspicion of witchcraft (one woman is killed because she stared “at the moon for a suspiciously long time.”) and law and order is administered by angry mobs. It’s here that Judy (Wasikowska) and Punch (Damon Herriman) eke out a living as puppeteers, making money by passing around a hat. She is clearly the more gifted artist but there is little room left for her in the spotlight as his ego takes up so much space. He is an ambitious but arrogant artist who craves attention almost as much as he thirsts for booze.

When his drinking leads to an unspeakable turn of events, Punch’s venal nature comes to the fore, and in a case of his Punch and Judy style art imitating real life, he puts his own self interest ahead of everyone, particularly his gentle-natured wife who must seek vengeance for his deeds.

“Judy and Punch” finally gives Punch his comeuppance after centuries of bad behavior. That’s not a spoiler, just the premise of the movie. The why and how of his punishment provide the subtext that makes the movie timely. A study in toxic masculinity, of abuse and misogyny, the movie mixes very dark satire, brutality and puppets to tell a story of addiction and domestic abuse.

Wasikowska grounds the story, playing Judy as a gentle soul pushed to extremes by tragic circumstances. Herriman—who played Charles Manson in both “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood” and “Mindhunter”—is a flamboyant Punch, a calculating drunk incapable of loving anyone as much as he loves himself. They are the movie’s yin and yang, and the conflict between them leads to a dark conclusion, equal parts magic realism and real life.

“Judy and Punch” is an impressive debut from actor-turned-director Mirrah Foulkes. Although uneven it cleverly balances everything from humour and tragedy to fairy tales and feminism, in a sly story of love and vengeance.