May December
WARNING ! This article contains spoiler for May December ( 2023 ) !
Summary
It ’s unmortgaged inMay Decemberthat Gracie ( Julianne Moore ) pull strings Joe ( Charles Melton ) throughout their entire " relationship , " but she also had a controlling nature over everyone else around her . enliven by thetrue chronicle of Mary Kay Letourneau , May Decemberhighlights the fact that Gracie manipulated Joe into stay with her and believe that he was the one responsible for their initial " love story , " despite the fact that he was only a 13 - year - previous child and she was a 36 - yr - old woman . When he confronts her about this approximately 23 years later on , shortly beforeMay December ’s ending , she continue to manipulate him by charge Joe and assert that he somehow seduced her .
Charles Melton ’s Joe is n’t the onlycharacter inMay Decemberwho Gracie manipulates , however . Throughout the Netflix - streaming 2023 movie , it ’s break howGracie controls everyone in her life , but she consistently deny any such intent . in particular , her fundamental interaction with her daughters , her son Georgie ( Cory Michael Smith ) , and Natalie Portman ’s Elizabeth Berry reveal how Gracie feigns naivety to get away with wrongful conduct , to control the great unwashed ’s actions , and to manipulate others ' perceptual experience of her .
The years gap between Gracie and Joe in May December is fair exact to the tangible - life geezerhood gap between jumper cable actors Julianne Moore and Charles Melton .
Gracie Manipulates Her Daughters By Body-Shaming Them
By giving this backhand compliment , Gracie imply that Mary ’s soundbox is something she should feel ashamed of , making her " fearless " for feeling confident enough to show her arms . This scuttlebutt makes Mary finger insecure and manipulates her into getting a dress Gracie require her to get . By disguise this insult as a compliment , Gracie is able to hide her malicious intention behind the welfare of the doubt . Perhaps Mary think her mother really is trying to congratulate her , when , in reality , she is trying to shame Mary into buying a wearing apparel with arm .
May December control level of visual and thematic symbolization that focus around a key construct of ego - reflection and how difficult our truths can be .
This is not the only time when Gracie torso - shame her daughters and disguise the insults as compliments . Her oldest daughter , Honor ( Piper Curda ) , laments that Gracie got her a scale as a high schoolhouse graduation present tense . Gracie assert that her female parent also gave her a scale leaf when she graduated from high school , so it ’s a family custom . The disguise of her intention fades away when she lastly assure Honor to try going through lifespan without a scale and to see how that go .
This is an even more conspicuous deed of body - shaming than the previous one . A exfoliation can be an scornful gift which could make someone feel unsafe about their body . When Honor sees through Gracie ’s prevarication that the scale was supposed to be a gift and not an insult , Gracie drops the act . By make a comment about going through life without a scurf , she acknowledge that she thinks Honor should have a scale or else she could become overweight . These example show how Gracie uses backhand compliment and blot out insults to fudge her daughters .
Gracie Manipulated Her Son Into Becoming Just Like Her
Georgie is portray by Cory Michael Smith . He is intimately know for his role as Edward Nygma , a.k.a . The Riddler , in the idiot box serial , Gotham .
Later , Georgie tells Elizabeth that Gracie was sexually abused as a child by her older brother , on the face of it explaining her reasons for beginning a predatory relationship with Joe . In this conversation , Georgie seems to show his true coloring material to Elizabeth . He switches from being a sensitive son into a operator , threaten to speak badly about Elizabeth ’s picture to the press unless she gives him a role as music supervisor for the film .
Todd Haynes ' May December country among the list of endear human dramas that explore melodic theme of gender , geezerhood , playact , and sensationalism in medium .
Another twist come when , towards the end of the moving picture , Gracie assure Elizabeth that she speaks to Georgie every day . She says this is how she come across that he told Elizabeth about Gracie ’s alleged childhood trauma , immediately contest Georgie ’s abuse title and calling it a repellent Trygve Halvden Lie . At this point , it ’s undecipherable who ’s telling the truth . May Decemberleaves it ambiguous whether Georgie actually feels bitterness towards his mother , as he may have lie to Elizabeth to manipulate her into feel sympathy for him . moreover , it ’s not unclouded whether Gracie actually talk to Georgie every solar day or not .
Either way , it ’s clear thatGracie ’s natural action have shaped her son into becoming who he is , whether he ’s a resentful boy who feel betrayed by his female parent ’s unfaithfulness with Joe , a manipulator who study how to control others from his mother , or some combination of the two . It may be more than a conjunction that Gracie and Georgie have such similar name , with the mother and Logos having far more in coarse than the rootage ofMay Decembersuggested .
Gracie Manipulated Elizabeth By Playing Dumb
Elizabeth call Gracie naive for trust all of her family appendage would be capable to get along at Mary and Charlie ’s graduation , but rather than denying this , Gracie agreed and elaborated that she ’s " always been " naive . This aligns with what Morris had to say about her , too . He claims that Gracie did n’t seem mindful that her kinship with Joe was illegal and that she could go to poky for it . Gracie ’s military action , however , call into question how unenlightened she really is .
Her reveal towards the end of the film that she speaks to Georgie every twenty-four hour period evoke thatGracie had more control over Elizabeth ’s perceptionof upshot than she permit on . Also , it was Gracie ’s melodic theme for Joe to push back Elizabeth home , which in the end led to them becoming intimate . Her previously advert interactions with her daughters and with Joe clearly show just how manipulative Grace Ethel Cecile Rosalie Allen is , suggesting that her naiveness is a facade to conceal this .
The last conversation between Elizabeth and Gracie seems to vex Portman ’s character so much because it ’s a jarring moment when Gracie drops the facade . She reveals how much she knows about Elizabeth and Georgie ’s conversation , perhaps about Joe and Elizabeth ’s sexual confrontation , and probably even more . defend her mask of naivety is a manner for Gracie to misrepresent everyone in her life and throughoutMay December .
