May December is the latest from Todd Haynes, best known for Far From Heaven, Mildred Pierce and Carol, and has a decidedly straightforward premise: A-List actress (Natalie Portman) travels to the home of Gracie (Julianne Moore) because in three weeks time, she will play Gracie in the film of her life. She’s there to observe, to slip into the background, and to capture the essence of Gracie’s life and existence. Drama inevitably unfolds, and slip into the background she most certainly does not. 

The tone of May December is deliciously camp. The punchy, piano-driven soundtrack is like something from a budget 90’s detective series, genuinely comical at times in how at-odds it is with our musical expectations of the present day. The plot itself twists and turns in glorious extravagance, completely indulging in the fun and the drama that the premise allows. It’s a genuinely funny script, and both Portman and Moore clearly relish the opportunity to stretch their comedic legs.

The story is immediately intriguing, and Haynes uses it to go nuts with satire. It’s a piss-take of a film, completely unserious and concerned almost entirely with making fun of the pretension and farcicality of humans and their morally-ambiguous decisions. This isn’t a film about good people and their good choices - and that makes the film all the more fun to watch. 

It’s unsurprising why two juggernauts of the movie industry in the form of Portman and Moore felt compelled to sign on to such a tantalising script. On paper, it’s Moore’s Gracie which is the juicier role of the two, with her outrageously lispy accent and frequent emotional outbursts. And Moore is, as always, absolutely brilliant, completely embodying the complex absurdity of Gracie, her loaded past exhibiting itself in every present-day line of dialogue or twitch of the eye.

But it’s Portman’s Elizabeth who slowly reveals herself as the film’s MVP. Her dialect and body language undergo a subtle metamorphosis as the story develops, her shift of character creeping up on you until it slaps you in the face. It’s a performance that demands a rewatch to capture those changes in real-time and to grasp the precise moment when the shift occurs.

Charles Melton, best known so far for his role in Riverdale, is solid as Gracie’s much-younger husband. It’s a less flashier role than the two titans with whom he shares the majority of his screen-time, but his character is the sun around which the plot revolves, and he holds his own against the two Oscar-winners. It’s a performance of subtlety and gentleness, a welcome antidote to the frazzled energy that the two women bring to the piece.  

But in spite of the film’s brilliant aspects, of which there are many, there’s something holding it back from being a truly exceptional film in its entirety. After an absolute ripper of an opening act, there’s a slight lull in the second where the pace and energy lose momentum. The plot, as intriguing and as interesting as it is, doesn’t quite resolve itself in an entirely satisfying way. There’s just something about the actual story of May December which doesn’t quite work. It doesn’t take things as far as the tone and the vibe of the film promise. 

But despite those criticisms, May December is still insanely watchable. It’s old-school and traditional in its construction, evoking the energy of a campy TV movie from times past, anchored by a pair of central performances from two of our best ever actors. Watching Portman and Moore embody emotionally-complex, arguably immoral and yet breathtakingly funny characters is an incredibly high-value use of one's time. It’s not often that our finest actresses find even one well-written performance in a film, and this one has two - unsurprising, given Haynes' emotionally-rich filmography so far, filled with interesting female characters and career-best performances from his muses. And with May December, although it’s not quite as triumphant as the likes of Far From Heaven or Carol, is still an undeniably valid contribution to his canon - and what a brilliant canon that is.