CANNES – Perhaps it was the actual fact we’ve reached the midway level of the 2023 Cannes Film Festival and the media have reached an inevitable breaking level with lack of sleep. Or possibly it was the customarily (however not talways) demure personalities of “May December’s” Oscar-winning stars, Julianne Moore and Natalie Portman. But the press convention for Todd Haynes‘ latest drama didn’t actually come alive till the tip of the proceedings when the acclaimed filmmaker was requested by a world journalist to make clear what the movie’s title really meant.
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“The title is a term in English, May December. It doesn’t translate into other languages,” he defined. “It just refers to an older/younger relationship, May and December.”
Haynes then, with the kicker, “And some people in France call it Le Macron.”
That elicited a spherical of gasps and laughs within the convention room. Some levity for a movie that peppers humor via a novel narrative of suppressed remorse and ache. (Oh, and for these unaware, the President of France, Emmanuel Macron, is married to a girl 25 years his senior).
The fifth collaboration between Moore and Haynes, “May December” follows overly keen tv actress Elizabeth Berry (Portman) as she visits the topic she’ll be portraying in an upcoming impartial movie, Gracie Atherton-Yoo (Moore). Atherton-Yoo and her now husband, Joe Yoo (Charles Melton) made world headlines over twenty years earlier when their clandestine affair was revealed. Gracie was in her mid-30s whereas Yoo was solely 13 years outdated on the time. Following Atherton-Yoo’s incarceration, the pair married and now have twins graduating from High School. On the floor, the couple believes they’ve put the controversy over their relationship behind them, however Berry’s presence rocks their seemingly blissful suburban facade.
Shot on location in Savannah, Georgia, the manufacturing was filmed over simply 23 days. That’s par for the course for an indie movie, however with virtually no rehearsal time, it was an adjustment for each Moore and Portman who hardly ever tackle such tasks at this level of their careers. Moore remembers on one explicit day she utterly forgot she had six pages of dialogue for a scene after an equally intense scene the identical morning.
“I was terrified. ‘Omg, omg, I can’t do this. I can’t do this,’” Moore remembers. “And Nat stated, ‘You got this.” And I was so grateful. I was so grateful. And I still say it to myself. I do, I’m like, ‘You got this.’ (Laughs.) It was such an exquisite group of individuals. Everyone was so invested. Everyone was so linked. So supportive of each other and it meant a lot to have these companions doing this work. And we didn’t actually know one another. We solely knew one another from awards exhibits earlier than we did this. And I used to be like, ‘I love her. I just love her.’ It gave me the power to get via that six pages of dialogue and that’s no small factor.”
“The feeling is mutual,” Portman provides. “I think one of the first scenes we did was the dress scene and that was such a monster scene too because it was all depending on where [my character] moved. Like it could affect the shot. It was so magical getting to watch Julianne as part of my character. Because it’s kind of what I wanted to do anyway? I had to keep remaining myself that I was in the scene also. Luckily I could use it as something Elizabeth would do. It was a really fun, meaningful, and fast shoot.”
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