Natalie Portman had played an unhinged artist before in Black Swan, and it looks like she’s going to be jumping into another artistic rabbithole with her next role in Todd Haynes’ May December.
Check out the first trailer:
The official synopsis reads:
Twenty years after their notorious tabloid romance, a married couple buckle under the pressure when a Hollywood actress meets them to do research for a film about their past.
For context, Haynes is the director behind dramas like Far from Heaven, I’m Not There, and Carol. More recently, he had directed the Velvet Underground documentary for Apple TV+.
Whenever actors take on roles of real people (or just based on real people), we always get all kinds of stories about how they got into character, like how they go so far as to practice that person’s diet or study all kinds of footage of them, and it looks like May December is going to be running with that concept.
On the other hand, the movie also looks to be tackling the issue of huge age gaps between romantic partners. While it’s not an entirely new thing, there have been accusations thrown around to the older partner of grooming; so it looks like the film is going to be toeing that line between what is a groomer to what is an authentic relationship between two people of different generations.
May December hits select theaters in November and comes to Netflix on Dec. 1.
