This review reads like parody of post-2010s "racial lens" approaches to criticism. The critic writes a screed about how everything in the movie is ACKSHUALLY a commentary on how the one Asian adult character relates to the other mostly white characters, one of whom is his wife. You literally cannot depict an interracial relationship in 2023 without leftist critics turning into klansmen seething.
(The movie depicts one of those gross female teacher/male 13 year old students relationships 25 years after the fact, when they've had kids who are now college-aged. The predatory older woman is played by Julianne Moore, and the youngster she preys upon is played by a Riverdale actor who is Korean).
The reviewer literally cannot stop themselves from pointing out how Moore's villainous character is a WHITE WOMAN (the worst!) while the husband is "Asian-American' (she uses this descriptor 20-30 times in the one review) and then extrapolates a racial lens that literally no one intended.
You want diverse casts and characters but you ALSO want the movies to be constantly reflecting your own racialised views of the world even when it's not relevant. Sometimes Asians marry (or befriend or just know) white people and vice versa, and race relations are unlike to be a big part of their interactions.
Even ignoring that, is this not a painfully boring way to look at movies? May December is a genuinely interesting, funny, creepy movie but of course if you reduce it down to WHITE WOMEN BAD your'e better off reading a middle-school chapter book in terms of nuance.
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Man I love Julianne Moore. She genuinely plays in some strange movies, only occasionally doing Hollywood movies now when she needs a top up.
Like this and 'Maps to the stars' where she plays an aging fickle actor who gets upset that Mia Wasikowska periods on her white lounge.
Really a big fan of hers. Also the Asian actor from Riverdale is pretty hot so sounds like a decent flick and this reviewer is terminally deranged.
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She's great in this. The movie's essentially a slow unwinding of the impacts of the way her marriage started - Moore captures the desperate performance of a 60 year old woman who's trying to pretend the fact she fricked, had kids with, and married a 13 year old had no last impacts. Natalie Portman is super creepy as a method actor studying her to perform in a movie about her life, and throughout the film Portman's character slowly takes on more and more of mannerisms but very subtly.
And yes the Riverdale guy is super hot (although his character's life is deeply depressing) and you get to see his peepee.
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Nice! She's always been so good at characters that unravell over the course of a film. You've really sold me on it. I'm defs going to watch it.
...also how's the peepee? Because if it's longer than the ticket to the movie then I'm doubleplus keen.
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gud peepee
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