‘May December’ Is a Tangled Web of Deceit—and It Leaves Some Questions Unanswered

May December, Todd Haynes’ new film about an actress portraying a rapist who married the boy she targeted, manages to be campy and disturbing all at once. If you’re still unpacking that explosive ending—and the unsettling questions it raises—you’re not alone. Let’s get into it!

May December tells the story of Elizabeth (Natalie Portman), an actress who travels to Savannah, Georgia to study Gracie (Julianne Moore), the woman she’s playing in her upcoming film. Gracie is notorious for raping a 13-year-old boy named Joe (Charles Melton) when she was 36, and then marrying him. The film is loosely based on a true story, but it takes a much different approach than the fictional movie production within it.

The rest of this article contains major spoilers for the end of May December.

Elizabeth finds her “truth”

Throughout May December, Elizabeth insists that she wants to get to the truth of Gracie’s character. We learn that Elizabeth is a Juilliard-trained actor, and she’s obviously dedicated to her work if she’s willing to travel to Savannah to get to know Grace and her family. Elizabeth just wants to do the best job she can, right?

She might tell herself that, but her illusion of professionalism steadily falls apart throughout the film. She has sex with Joe, and tells her director she wants a sexier boy to play him in the film. She playacts Gracie’s rape of Joe in a pet store stockroom. She gives an inappropriate talk about sexuality to a high school theater class. It’s clear that Elizabeth is caught up in what she wants Gracie’s story to be.

Plus, as other critics have pointed out, the film signals that Elizabeth isn’t actually a fantastic actor. The awards show we overhear doesn’t sound like one of the more prestigious ones. Elizabeth mentions that she’s in a show called Nora’s Ark, which doesn’t scream prestige TV. The monologue she rehearses based on Gracie’s letter to Joe is painful to watch. All these issues come to a head in the final scene, when we finally see Elizabeth in character.

The scene she’s filming is, to put it bluntly, a joke. Elizabeth, wearing blond hair and whispering in a high-pitched imitation of Gracie, seduces “Joe” by handing him a live snake. Joe is played by an actor who’s much older than the kids who auditioned, giving the scene a veneer of romance that feeds the lie that the 13-year-old Joe was capable of consent. Elizabeth and her costar do several takes, but when the director says it’s time to move on, Elizabeth begs for one more chance. She says that she’s finally getting at something real.

But she’s not. The movie they’re making isn’t an honest portrayal of a sexual predator—it’s a salacious, exploitative fantasy. It’s hard to see what “truth” Elizabeth thinks she’s getting at.

What about Joe?

The butterfly metaphor might be a little on the nose (will Joe fly free like the monarchs he hatches, or will he remain caged in a life he never chose?), but the end of Joe’s story is interesting. At the end, Joe finally confronts Gracie about his age when she raped him, asking her if they can talk about it. Gracie isn’t hearing it, though—she insists that Joe is the one who seduced her, even though he was just a child. She’s not willing to hear him out, which reveals the abusive core of their relationship: She’s been in charge all along, and she’s not interested in being honest about her actions.

However, the end of the film signals that Joe is finally starting to take a hard look at his circumstances. Sleeping with Elizabeth and contemplating an affair with one of his fellow monarch breeders isn’t a healthy way to go about it, but the seeds of a deeper reckoning are there.

Was Gracie herself abused?

Near the end of the film, Gracie’s son Georgie (Cory Michael Smith) gives Elizabeth what seems like important information: Gracie was molested by her brothers as a child. For Elizabeth, this information seems like the final piece of the puzzle. When she says goodbye to Gracie at her daughter’s high school graduation, she smugly says that she understands who Gracie is.

But then Gracie turns the tables by revealing that she knows what Georgie told her, because she and Georgie talk every day—not only that, but Gracie claims it’s not true, and that the lie is “disgusting.”

Elizabeth’s reaction is fascinating. Somehow, her relationship with Gracie has become a competition—To understand Gracie’s character? To control the narrative? To get access to Joe?—and suddenly, Elizabeth seems to have lost. She’s visibly flustered and upset when Gracie walks off. Was Gracie actually abused as a child? Is Georgie really not as estranged from his mother as he claims, or is Gracie the one who’s lying? It’s impossible to say. At the end, Elizabeth is forced to reckon with the fact that she doesn’t know nearly as much about Gracie as she thinks she does.

Maybe that’s why, in that final scene, she takes refuge in the fantasy she’s concocted—just like Gracie did all those years ago.

May December is now streaming on Netflix.

(featured image: Netflix)