4.5 stars out of 5
I have gone on record as being a big fan of both Julianne Moore and Natalie Portman (who once guest-edited an issue of my magazine). For Todd Haynes, I had to play a little catch-up, but he’s become one of my favorite directors. So I had high expectation for this film, which were not just met, but exceeded.
Haynes returns to an idea from his infamous first film, 1987’s Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story (the original Barbie movie!) — humanizing a tabloid tale. Here, TV actress Elizabeth (Portman) is researching the role of Gracie (Moore), who 20+ years earlier was a lurid media sensation for seducing and being impregnated by a 7th grader. The couple has stayed together all these years, raising three kids and trying to live as normally as possible. But Elizabeth’s questioning stirs up issues the family has never fully dealt with.
Moore and Portman are at the absolute top of their games. Moore’s Gracie is always smiling, always Southern polite (with a slight lisp!), until Portman’s Elizabeth digs a little too deep, and then Gracie snaps just a little — protective of herself and her family. Gracie just as quickly gathers herself and is the textbook suburban mom again. Portman, meanwhile, imbues Elizabeth with a little defensiveness of her own, selfishness, and raw ambition. She is grateful for her TV celebrity status but reminds us that she started “on the stage” (she is a serious actress!) and really wants to prove herself by totally inhabiting the Gracie character.
I wasn’t familiar with Charles Melton’s work on Riverdale (on account of me not being a tween girl) but he is excellent here as Gracie’s husband Joe. He’s quiet, subdued, trying his best but clearly not in charge — and secretly trying to carve out his own existence, like the Monarch butterflies he breeds.
The story is set in Savannah, Georgia, and Haynes visually matches the city’s laid-back vibe. The camera work is soft and a little grainy, reminiscent of a ‘70s film. It makes for a nice contrast with the ever-present simmering tension, which when it boils over is punctuated with jarring stabs of dramatic music. Haynes also repeatedly utilizes mirrors here, underscoring how characters see themselves, and how they want to present themselves to others.
Kudos to Samy Burch and Alex Mechanik who came up with the story (Burch also wrote the screenplay). It appears they’ve primarily been crew members on other feature films, while also creating a couple of their own shorts. But in their first major effort they’ve delivered a layered, emotionally complex script, which Haynes and his actors have turned into one of the best films of the year.
Jack Silbert, curator