'May December' Is a Wicked Imitation Game

Mary Kay Letourneau was a 35-year-old schoolteacher in Seattle in 1997, when her sexual relationship with a preteen student earned her 15 minutes of infamy. Cast as the porcelain blonde visage of middle-aged, maternal perversion, Letourneau gamely positioned herself as an existential victim; the title of the quickie tell-all she co-wrote with her partner, Vili Fualaau, while in jail was Un Seul Crime, L’amour (“only one crime, love”). “She doesn’t believe she needs treatment because she doesn’t believe that she did anything wrong,” snarked the prosecutor who tried the case, and in a pre-internet era when a People cover and an Oprah appearance could make somebody a household name, the ambiguity of Letourneau’s motives proved irresistible fodder for pop psychologists, armchair moralizers, and supermarket-aisle rubberneckers alike.