May December – 8

Suspense builds nicely as a TV star played by Natalie Portman, doing research for an upcoming film, visits the home of a former school teacher, played by Julianne Moore, who after an affair with a 13-year-old student followed by childbirth, incarceration and marriage is living unhappily ever after in their Savannah home. As the teacher-student story is based on a notorious real-life incident, we don’t question its plausibility; we grapple instead with the fissures in the relationships between the three principals: who is using whom? who is comfortable in their own skin? Portman is terrific in her role, and Charles Melton is getting awards for his performance as an adult who missed an adolescence. My only qualm was Moore, who is simply too good and glamorous an actress to convince me of who she was supposed to be.