The Uncanny Façades of 'May December'

At the beginning of Todd Haynes’s uncanny new melodrama, May December, an actress named Elizabeth Berry (Natalie Portman) observes a beautiful couple, Gracie (Julianne Moore) and Joe (Charles Melton), cuddling on patio chairs outside their coastal manor home. Located on a barrier island 20 minutes from downtown Savannah, Ga., the family residence is an ideal spot to host a barbecue. There’s a velvety beachside view, a sprawling deck, a bedroom window with access to the roof, where gangly teenagers have assembled. The two are speaking to each other, but we can’t hear them from where Elizabeth is sitting; the camera slowly zooms in on their muted conversation, creating a sense of intrigue. Keeping with a long tradition in American drama about the dark underbelly of suburban life, the scene intimates that there is more to this quaint image of domesticity than meets the eye. Elizabeth is banking on it and so are we.