Todd Haynes’ latest film “May December” is elusive but fascinating in its tricky psychological drama between a famous actress and a notorious woman she is supposed to play. While mostly cold and dispassionate in terms of mood and storytelling, the movie intrigues us as slowly and subtly revealing the dark and disturbing emotional undercurrents under the surface, and it is also sometimes unexpectedly sad and harrowing as we come to sense more of where its little but precious emotional center lies.

The story begins from the viewpoint of Elizabeth Berry (Natalie Portman), a well-known Hollywood actress who has been preparing for a movie based on a certain infamous case which happened 23 years ago in a little neighborhood of Savannah, Georgia. She is going to play a woman who got arrested and then incarcerated for being sexually involved with a 13-year-old Korean American kid in her neighborhood, and she will soon spend some time with this notorious woman in question as a part of her ongoing character study.

The most bizarre and curious things about Gracie Atherton-Yoo (Julianne Moore), who is clearly inspired by Mary Kay Letourneau, are that 1) she has continued to live in her neighborhood since she was released a few years later and 2) she has also been married to that Korean American kid since that. She and Joe (Charles Melton) are now residing together in a big and comfortable house with their several kids, and we later come to learn that they are even on fairly good terms with Gracie’s, uh, ex-family, who also incidentally live in the very same neighborhood.

Anyway, Elizabeth is welcomed by Gracie and Joe when she meets them for the first time at their house, and Gracie and Joe look, well, pretty content with how their life has been going during last several years. As all of their kids, who are all over 17 now, will leave their home sooner or later for leading each own life out there, and this will certainly lead to the next chapter of Joe and Gracie’s married life.

Gradually becoming more fascinated with Gracie, Elizabeth comes to see how casual and unapologetic Gracie is about what happened between her and Joe at that time. It goes without saying that she was guilty of abusing and exploiting young Joe, but Gracie looks like more occupied with her present and future while looking back at her past at all, and we cannot help but discern that there is something rather elusive and unnerving about her supposedly open and cheery appearance on the outside. She seems ready to share anything with Elizabeth on the surface, but it also looks like she is always keeping something to herself, and this surely tantalizes Elizabeth more.

Just for getting to know her character more, Elizabeth later approaches to a number of people associated with Graice in one way or another, and that is where the story becomes more interesting. She meets not only Gracie’s ex-husband but also her lawyer at that time, and both of these two guys certainly have something to tell about Gracie while not having much hard feeling about her now. In case of one of Gracie’s kids from her previous marriage, it is apparent that he is still reeling from his personal pain from the incident even after many years, and we can only imagine how shocking and devastating it was for him at that time.

However, his miserable status may be relatively a little better than whatever Joe has been silently going through for years. Right from his first appearance in the film, we instantly discern an emotionally stunted boy trapped inside his aged body, and then we become more aware of how often he looks more like a kid to be taken care of by Gracie than her spouse. There is something which has been repressed and forgotten behind his mild and passive attitude, and now he is sort of being awakened as his life with Gracie is examined more by Elizabeth.

Without spelling out anything loud, the screenplay by Samy Burch, which was developed from the story by Burch and his co-writer Alex Mechanik, deftly and steadily maintains its subtle storytelling approach, and this is further enhanced by Haynes and his crew members including cinematographer Christopher Blauvelt, who has been mainly known for his frequent collaborations with Kelly Reichardt. At first, everything on the screen feels cozy and buoyant due to the soft and grainy visual quality of Blauvelt’s cinematography, but the mood slowly become tense and sobering with more visual clarity on the screen, and the score by Marcelo Zarvos, which is based on Michel Legrand’s score for Joseph Losey’s “The Go-Between” (1971), often accentuates that throughout the film.

The three main cast members are pitch-perfect in their respective acting. While Natalie Portman is fabulous as her banal character is more driven to make her work more “real”, Julianne Moore, who previously collaborated with Haynes in “Safe” (1995) and “Far from Heaven” (2002), has a nasty fun as her elusive character looks more disturbing to us along the story, and she and Portman are terrific whenever illustrating the subtle tension behind their characters’ increasingly uncomfortable interactions. As another crucial part of the story, Charles Melton, a promising actor who has been mainly known for his supporting role in TV drama series “Riverdale”, does more than holding his own place well between Moore and Portman, and his excellent supporting turn here in this film is surely one of major discoveries of this year.

In conclusion, “May December”, which was released on Netflix in US and Canada a few days ago, handles well its understandable sensational story materials under Haynes’ calm and confident direction, and the result is another highlight in Haynes’ long and illustrious career packed with a number of interesting films such as “I’m Not There” (2007) and “Carol” (2015). Sure, this is not something you can casually watch on Sunday afternoon, but you will not easily forget what is presented so well on the screen by mood, performance, and storytelling, and it is inarguably one of the most fascinating movies of this year.