Film Review: MAY DECEMBER

Moore and Melton as the happy couple.

Now streaming on Netflix, MAY DECEMBER sounds better than it is. It is loosely based on the scandalous 1996 incident when a married teacher had an affair with her 7th grade student, got pregnant by him and went to jail for more than seven years, then came out with a baby and married the boy. And they stayed married until, well, forever. Despite a few laughs, I found it creepy from beginning to end, which was clearly the intent of director Todd Haynes who has dallied with oddness in all of his past films.

Starring Natalie Portman and Julianne Moore, two fine actresses, the plot is strange, disturbing and ultimately pointless, offering little useful information besides how to raise butterflies -- more on that later. Ominous music accompanies a variety of sub-plots, as if that scandalous affair wasn't strange enough. So we get to see a few odd fetishes and a whole lot of Natalie Portman staring into the camera for an uncomfortably long time, more than once. (She's pretty, we get it, but enough already.)

The hunky kid grew up into a hunky actor I never heard of but is apparently adored by a younger audience, Charles Melton. His character is the only decent one in the movie, and except for his sleeping with a woman 24 years his senior when he was 12, is very likable. Apart from all that, his hobby of raising Monarch butterflies from eggs to adults is lovely to see, and also interesting.