Women don’t always have to be the good guys: Natalie Portman
CANNES – A darker side of female sexuality was on display in Cannes, in a film portraying a woman who seduced a schoolboy and built a picture-perfect life with him after a tabloid scandal.
Starring Julianne Moore and Natalie Portman, May December takes viewers on a roller coaster of moral ambiguity as it looks at the couple living a life of apparent suburban bliss with their children despite being on the sex offenders’ register.
Portman, 41, plays an actress who spends time with the family as she prepares to play the woman at the heart of the scandal, played by Moore, 62.
Her arrival opens up buried wounds, and Portman’s character makes questionable decisions.
The star, who won the Best Actress Oscar for the psychological drama Black Swan (2010), told AFP she loved to see the women “behave in morally ambiguous ways”.
“The entire range of human behaviour should be accessible to women because women are simply humans,” Portman said.
“It always drives me crazy when people are like, oh, if only women rule the world, it would be a kinder place. No, women are humans and come in all different complexities.”
Reviews were largely positive, with IndieWire enjoying the “deliciously campy drama” and The Telegraph calling it a “thrilling psychological tennis game”.
May December became an immediate contender for an award on the final night at Cannes on Saturday.
Many felt director Todd Haynes was robbed in 2015 when his landmark lesbian romance Carol (2015), starring Cate Blanchett and Rooney Mara, failed to take home the Palme d’Or, though Mara won the Best Actress prize.
Haynes, 62, said he missed the days when films had an easier time “asking questions and debating the morality”.
It is getting “harder and harder to make those kinds of films”, he told AFP, with society no longer “comfortable with being uncomfortable. I think that’s the death of thinking, the death of social critique and criticism”.
Repressed desires
Portman shot to stardom at age 12 in Leon: The Professional (1994), a film by French director Luc Besson which led her to be sexualised as a child, and towards which she has said she now has complicated feelings.
The film was inspired by Besson’s relationship with French actress and director Maiwenn, whom he married when she was 16. Maiwenn starred in and directed Jeanne Du Barry, alongside Hollywood actor Johnny Depp, which caused a scandal as it opened at Cannes in 2023.
Besson, who has directed films such as La Femme Nikita (1990) and The Fifth Element (1997), has faced several rape allegations, which Portman said she found “devastating”, without wanting to give more details.
May December is among several films at Cannes in 2023 taking a deeper dive into the inner lives of women.
“I think that there is no limit to how much these can be explored, so I’d like to see more,” said Portman.
Haynes said the movie explored people’s refusal to look at themselves honestly.
“We repress a lot of our desires for the best reasons. A civilised society exists by holding back.” - AFP
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