May December revolves around a woman who was jailed for a sexual relationship with a 13-year-old. It's eerily close to real life

It's no secret that Australia sometimes gets the raw end of the deal when it comes to new film releases.

Once in a while we'll get a tentpole blockbuster — including Barbie — a day earlier than most countries, but most of the time cinephiles in the US are watching buzzy films weeks before they grace an Australian cinema.

In the case of Todd Haynes's new film May December, Australia is months behind the States.

The movie was released in select American cinemas November 17, before it hit Netflix in the US and Canada on December 1. It set the internet alight for two reasons:

• The trio of lead cast performances (including a breakout turn for Riverdale's Charles Melton)
• Its similarity to the Mary Kay Letourneau scandal of the late 90s/early 2000s.

Now, after an almost-three-month wait, May December will open in select Australian cinemas on February 1, so let's catch you up.

What is May December about?

May December follows actor Elizabeth (Natalie Portman), who goes to stay with a woman and her family in preparation for a role.

Julianne Moore is the family matriarch, Gracie, who lives with her doting husband Joe (Melton) and two teen children (the third is off at college).

But their surface level, white-picket normality masks the ugly truth about Gracie and Joe's relationship.

In 1992, a then-36-year-old Gracie began a sexual relationship with her co-worker at a pet shop — a then 13-year-old Joe. There was a national scandal when they were caught in the act, then a lengthy prison stint for Gracie, who gave birth to their first child while in jail.

The film doesn't show the scandal unfolding in real time, but rather picks up 23 years into their relationship. Elizabeth is excited to be cast in a film playing Gracie, and she's staying with the family to observe her.

What are critics saying about May December?

May December has been widely praised for being both heartbreaking and comedic (much to the ire of the Australians who have been waiting to see it).

A lot of the snaps are directed at Moore and Portman for creating an eerie, sickly connection between two characters who lack the most basic of boundaries.

But the true breakout performance belongs to Charles Melton, who is perhaps best known for playing Reggie from CW's bonkers Riverdale re-imagining. Long relegated to ditzy hunk, Melton delivers a stoic, aching performance that was crowned "genius" by Rolling Stone's CT Jones.

"Melton's Joe manages to physically embody a 13-year-old in the shoulders of an anxious 36-year-old father of three," Jones wrote.

"It's a finely calibrated performance that never goes overboard; a subtle approach that makes his life seem all the more tragic."

It's all translated into a laundry list of accolades for Melton, including Golden Globe and Critics' Choice nominations. Many hoped the hype would land Melton an underdog Oscar nod, but those hopes were dashed last week.

Though May December did pick up an Oscar nomination for Best Original Screenplay.

Is May December a comedy or a drama?

At the risk of saying 'dramedy', it's kinda both.

The subject matter is as serious as it comes but the film is very aware of itself to the point of comedy — as betrayed by its soap opera-esque score.

"The music is so assaultive and so right in your face, there's a sense of irony or foreboding that is implicit," director Todd Haynes told Netflix.

In one scene, Moore dramatically opens a fridge door to a horror-adjacent strike of strings, before monotonously stating, "I don't think we have enough hot dogs." It's become a meme in its own right.

Basically, you're supposed to be laughing with the film, not at it.

Is May December a true story?

Sort of. It's fairer to say it is loosely but quite obviously inspired by the true story of Mary Kay Letourneau and Vili Fualaau.

Letourneau was a 34-year-old married mother of four in 1996 when she began a sexual relationship with a then 12-year-old Fualaau, a student in her class at Shorewood Elementary in Seattle.

When police discovered them in a parked car at a marina, they claimed Fualaau was 18 and that nothing sexual happened. But two months later it was revealed she was pregnant with Faulaau's child.

Letourneau pled guilty to two counts of second-degree child rape and was given a suspended three-month jail sentence, as well as a no-contact order to stay away from Fualaau and any other minors.

Their first daughter was born in May 1997.

In early 1998, police caught the pair together again, which violated the conditions of Letourneau's parole and she was sentenced to seven-and-a-half years behind bars.

The couple's second daughter was born in October 1998, while Letourneau was still in jail.

They characterised their relationship as one of love, even writing a book together: Un seul crime, l'amour, or Only One Crime, Love.

Letourneau was released in 2004 and she married Fualaau on May 20, 2005, when Fualaau was 21 and she was 43.

But it didn't last a lifetime: Court records show Fualaau first asked for a legal separation from Letourneau on May 9, 2017.

Letourneau died from advanced colon cancer in 2020.

So how similar is the film?

Now, there are very minor differences between Letourneau's story and May December.

In the film, Gracie and Joe met while working at a pet store, not in a classroom; Joe is aged up a year; and the timelines don't match exactly.

However, a scene towards the end of the film all but confirms that May December is ripped from the headlines about Letourneau and Fualaau.

In the film's closing minutes, Joe comes to Gracie, apparently realising for the first time that there's something abnormal about their marriage.

A tearful Gracie asks Joe repeatedly "Who was the boss?" in an attempt to gaslight her husband into seeing her as the victim.

The scene is made all the more heartbreaking when you realise the dialogue was taken almost word-for-word from a 2018 Seven News interview with the couple.

Both the interview and its cinematic recreation are extremely difficult watches.

What has Vili Fualaau said about May December?

May December writer Samy Birch admitted at the film's red carpet premiere that the film was inspired by Letourneau and Fualaau's story, but denied it's a rip-off.

"Certainly that's the seed of it, the big picture thing, but it was important to me that this wasn't the Mary Kay Letourneau story," Burch told The Hollywood Reporter.

Moore echoed Burch's statement claiming, "This is not the story of Mary Kay Letourneau."

But that's not how Fualaau sees it.

Now 40 years old with another child from a different relationship, he is also expecting a grandchild from one of his daughters with Letourneau.

Shortly after the film's release Fualaau told The Hollywood Reporter that no one from the production contacted him at any point.

"If they had reached out to me, we could have worked together on a masterpiece. Instead, they chose to do a rip-off of my original story," he said.

May December is in cinemas from February 1.