The present will crumble under the weight of the past in Todd Haynes’ new film May December. As Deadline reports, it stars the timeless talents of Natalie Portman and Julianne Moore.
The story follows a Hollywood starlet (Portman) as she travels to Maine to prepare for a biographical film based on a real-life woman (Moore). Two decades prior, Moore’s character became a tabloid sensation when she married a man 23 years younger. While she and her now-36-year-old husband prepare to send their twin daughters off to college, the actress probes the family’s dynamic, and her outsider’s perspective causes a radical reappraisal of this May-December relationship.
The screenplay comes from Samy Burch, based on a story by Burch and Alex Mechanik. In a statement, Haynes said, “What so appealed to me about Samy Burch’s exceptional script was how it navigated potentially volatile subject matter with a kind of observational patience that allowed the characters in the story to be explored with uncommon subtlety.”
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This will be the fifth time Haynes directed Moore, and they’ve previously worked together on Safe, Far from Heaven, I’m Not There, and Wonderstuck. Next up for Haynes are two music flicks: the documentary The Velvet Underground and the Peggy Lee biopic Fever. As for Moore, she can currently be seen in Apple TV+’s Stephen King adaptation Lisey’s Story, and later this year she’ll appear in the musical Dear Evan Hansen. Meanwhile, Portman just wrapped production on Thor: Love and Thunder.