This is a profoundly uncomfortable film.
It’s also an acting tour de force by stars Julianne Moore and Natalie Portman: no surprise, since director Todd Haynes has a long-established talent for eliciting delicately nuanced performances in what are essentially two-character dramas (2015’s Carol and 2002’s Far from Heaven leap to mind).
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| At first blush, Joe (Charles Melton) and Gracie (Julianne Moore) seem a happy couple, mutually devoted to each other. But still — and quite unwholesome — waters run deep... |
(Sadly, the story is inspired by actual 1996 events; look up Mary Kay Letourneau.)
The year is 2015. Celebrated actress Elizabeth Berry (Portman) has traveled to the oak- and Spanish moss-laden neighborhoods of Savannah, Ga., in order to study Gracie Atherton-Yoo (Moore), the woman she’ll play in her next movie.
Gracie’s claim to fame? Back in 1992, at the age of 36 — a wife and mother — she was caught having sex with 13-year-old Joe Yoo, in the storeroom of the pet store where he worked alongside her son Georgie. She was arrested and imprisoned, had a child while behind bars, then divorced her husband and married Joe upon release: all of which fueled long-running, scandalized headlines in mainstream and tabloid publications.
Now, 23 years later, Gracie and Joe (Charles Melton) have three children: college-age Honor (Piper Curda) and twins Mary (Elizabeth Yu) and Charlie (Gabriel Chung), the latter two about to graduate from high school. Elizabeth has been invited, with Gracie’s full support, to “shadow” her and her family for several days.
Gracie also has instructed everybody to cooperate, to every extent possible.
(The casualness of such encouragement is just as unsettling as the situation itself. Which also speaks volumes about Gracie’s character.)
At first blush, Elizabeth finds the environment warm and inviting. Many folks — notably Mary — are dazzled by the mere presence of a celebrity in their midst. Joe is amiable and accommodating: a doting parent and husband.
But cracks surface; what seems warm actually is quietly stifling. Gracie soon reveals her true colors as a control freak (which Moore plays with chilling persuasiveness). When Elizabeth joins Mary and her mother when the girl selects a new dress to wear beneath her graduation gown, what should be a celebratory moment turns wincingly embarrassing, thanks to Gracie’s manipulative, left-handed “compliment.” (Yu’s expression, at this moment, is shattering.)
Elizabeth’s interview with Gracie’s first husband, Tom (D.W. Moffett), begins amiably enough ... until, as Elizabeth probes further, the poor guy’s good ol’ boy façade crumbles. Moffett handles this brief scene brilliantly.
Charles Green and Kelvin Han Yee are similarly strong during equally fleeting appearances as, respectively, the pet store owner and Joe’s father.
As the days pass, Elizabeth begins to mimic Gracie’s manners, movements and even appearance: a process that the latter assists, when she applies her usual makeup to the visitor’s face. Both actresses turn what should be a casual act into something positively creepy. We wonder: Is Gracie grooming her?
And, if so, what does that suggest about other, past events?
Joe’s initially affable manner notwithstanding, the wrongness of his dynamic with Gracie emerges at telling moments. She treats him more like a child ... perhaps even more like a puppy. He complies with her every request — or demand — but Melton’s expression turns from compliant to aggravated, when she isn’t looking.
It becomes obvious that he’s miserably unhappy, and has been, for a long time. Melton’s occasional anguish is palpable; we grieve for the life that he lost 23 years earlier.
Darker behavior surfaces. Georgie (Cory Michael Smith, appropriately slimy), when Elizabeth chances to meet him, is an unapologetic hustler and probable liar. He candidly insists that this is only natural, given how his life was screwed up; how could he be otherwise?
The supposed acceptance that the community has bestowed upon Gracie and her family turns out to be an illusion: something she likely has long known, but has defiantly ignored. Moore puts icy intensity into Gracie’s stubborn perception of reality: She genuinely believes that she did nothing wrong, 23 years earlier, and — as long as she’s in control — she swans about like the belle of the ball.
She’s a monster.
But Elizabeth isn’t blameless. Her “shadowing” is far from benign; she pokes, prods and persists with questions and comments that feel less like innocent curiosity, and more like an investigative reporter preparing a tell-all exposé. She uses people, relying on her charm — as an actress — to get what she wants.
Portman plays this duality with delicacy. As this film begins, we worry about Elizabeth — perhaps even feel sorry for her — due to the degree that she seems a lamb destined to be swallowed whole by Gracie. But as the story draws to its conclusion, it’s difficult to determine which woman is worse: an uncertainly that really hits home during a brief and disturbing epilogue.
All this said, and the acting nuances notwithstanding, Burch and Mechanik’s script is needlessly heavy-handed at times, with unnecessarily blatant symbolism. The result lacks the subtlety of the two earlier Haynes films cited above. And Marcelo Zarvos’ monotonously thundering piano score is flat-out annoying.
You’ll spend most of this film wincing and squirming. Whether this is justified by Moore and Portman’s richly powerful performances, will be up to the individual viewer.
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