‘May December’ Screenwriter Samy Burch On Exploring Human Truths Through Tabloid Melodrama

Camp is a funny thing.

Often, the word is used to describe overly theatrical, either unintentionally or very deliberately so, productions. Campy films are films that inspire laughter and obsession in equal measure. We’re talking Mommie Dearest or Showgirls or What Ever Happened To Baby Jane?. These are over-the-top experiences where the performances are typically as large as the wigs and subtlety need not apply.

But what if a film dabbled in camp aesthetics while, at the same time, exploring deep-seated, uncomfortable human emotions? That’s what you call melodrama.

Those unspoken truths are what screenwriter Samy Burch, working with Alex Mechanik, explore in director Todd Haynes’ (Carol) new film May December. A variation on the mid-90s case of May Kay Letourneau, Burch’s screenplay explores the emotional trauma resulting from an earlier love affair between older Gracie Atheron-Yoo (Julianne Moore) and then teenager Joe Yoo (played as an adult by Gotham Award-winner Charles Melton). When actress Elizabeth Berry (Natalie Portman) comes to understand the events to accurately portray Gracie in a film, painful, long-buried emotions resurface. We see the legacy of this tabloid-friendly case and the lingering post-traumatic stress on those most closely impacted.

These events are delicately, almost subtly, explored through a film that also revels in its melodramatic aesthetic.

Here, Samy Burch talks about the genesis of May December and her fascination of the tabloid culture from which it spawned. She talks about structuring the film 20 years after the original affair to allow for a sense of distance from the original crime. She also describes embracing the campy, melodramatic elements of the film with director Todd Haynes. Finally, she talks about the performances of Julianne Moore and Natalie Portman and how elements of the characters gradually reveal through production design and costumes.

May December streams exclusively on Netflix starting this Friday, December 1.

Awards Daily: I know you’d mentioned that the genesis of this film comes from your fascination with the the tabloid nature of the story. Talk to me about how you got to this point, brought these characters to life, and focused on this relationship?

Samy Burch: What really excited me about it was this idea of a man in his mid 30s who was about to be an empty nester who hadn’t processed both the trauma of what happened, the media blitz that followed, and this parenthood that was thrust upon him. That, for me, was the spark. I already knew I wanted to set it 20 years in the future so that you’re just not staring directly at this thing. You’re seeing more of the remnants of the thing, and there’s room for humor and other modes of investigation which felt like the right way to tell the story to me.

Awards Daily: Because you’re emotionally farther away from the actual story where there’s a 13 year old who’s having an affair with a 36 year old?

Samy Burch: Exactly. There’s some needed distance. I’m skeptical of, in general, this retelling or relooking at some of these stories right in the face. I think more things are clear 20 years after. There’s perspective. There’s hindsight, and there is room for some levity. It’s a delicate balance because I don’t want anyone to get the impression that some of these events are the punchline. They’re not, but I think everyone’s capable of experiencing as a whole that there is there is a lot of humor in the film.

Awards Daily: It must have been fun for you to have Todd take a look at the screenplay and bring out those moments in the edit. For example, the line “I don’t think we have enough hot dogs” will be said forever in pop culture. That must have been fun to be able to explore this story through this melodramatic comic universe.

Samy Burch: Absolutely. All of his choices are so thoughtful and confident and bold and fearless. Even as a fan of his, to be able to have that access to watch him work is so exciting. The way he implements a visual language. I know he’s talked about that. He put a flag in the sand of knowing how he wanted to shoot the monologue with Natalie Portman, to camera through a mirror, and then work backward to have a way to establish that language. Those are things that I am not thinking about as a writer. It’s incredibly exciting.

Awards Daily: So you talked about Joe being your entry point into the story. With the Charles Melton performance, he unravels slowly as the film goes on which has to be scripted and designed to follow that trajectory. Particularly that beautiful moment at the graduation ceremony, he’s just has this very powerful emotional moment, not a breakdown but an acknowledgement of pain. 

Samy Burch: I think Charles Melton is so wonderful in the movie, and he’s truly heartbreaking. That moment moves me every time. I see so much relief. There’s a lot in that moment, but there’s a finality and emancipation in that I think.

Awards Daily: The way he reprocesses the trauma there in that scene also speaks to his stolen childhood.

Samy Burch: Absolutely.

Awards Daily: Shifting over to Elizabeth, the Natalie Portman character, talk to me about how you determined how her character would navigate the entire story?

Samy Burch: Right from the beginning, there’s a glib, kind of acerbic, lens towards Elizabeth in just that she is very fake. That’s our first clue really that she’s not a reliable narrator in the situation. She has this mask on immediately when she’s clearly having an affair with the director of her film. That’s part of the fun of the character, I think. We go in thinking she’s our entry point. She’s our barometer of morality and information. In some ways, she is kind of an investigative journalist. But then she reveals herself slowly to be quite a vampire, quite an insecure vampire. That’s always how I’ve seen it. Gracie is the sun that everything orbits around. The audience, Natalie Portman’s character, and even Joe’s character are all trying to figure out why she did this or how aware was she of this? What were her motivation? What’s her interior life? The third act is really Joe stepping into that spotlight and remembering the human toll of this.

Awards Daily: Julianne Moore’s Gracie feels incredibly domineering throughout the film. Why make that her primary attribute? 

Samy Burch: She’s very interesting because I think she’s beyond that. She is completely in control. She has a hyper femininity that is kind of weaponized. The way she sees herself is very opposite of how we see her. I think a lot of it is about power. It’s about saying things that you don’t mean. The scene in the dressing room when she insults her daughter with a compliment, I don’t even know if she would have said that if Elizabeth wasn’t there. There’s something where she’s exerting dominance in that moment, in the middle of their conversation, to show that she can. There’s a lot of very barbed wire subtext of what she says. That’s a question I still have with people like that. Is there any amount of awareness or calculation or is it almost like a jaguar in the wild where it’s completely natural? She doesn’t have to think about it. That’s just a question that I have and find interesting with her character.

Awards Daily: In terms of her control, she orchestrates items of beauty through her flower orientation and through her baking. Where, in the real world, I feel like she doesn’t have that. I think that’s just a really great touch.

Samy Burch: I love the work that the production designer, Sam Lisensco, and the costume designer, April Napier, did. There’s just this pastel dreamy doll-like princess feel that she has. And Julianne, she’s just incredible always forever, obviously, but it’s so exciting to see the choices that she makes in the way she is able to explore the exterior and the interior-facing sides of this character. And the rawness of her tears about a cake.

Awards Daily: You come from casting as well. Now you’ve written this screenplay. Walk me through the moment when you realize Natalie Portman and Julianne Moore were onboard for the project. 

Samy Burch: It was crazy. It was even heightened more because, when I was signed in January 2020, I didn’t have any representation. That was honestly my goal when I wrote the script — to finally get a manager. Then, it went out and started to get really exciting. First, Jessica Elbaum and Will Ferrell coming on as producers. They were so wonderful and were so supportive and really dedicated to getting this made. And then Natalie Portman. That was of course a life-changing event for her to say I want to play this role. It was really wilder than I could have conjured, honestly.

Then, the memory I have of hearing Todd Haynes was interested because I didn’t know it was sent to him. Thankfully, they spared me that wait. This was someone that I respect. There aren’t words to say how much I love his work. It’s been such an incredible reveal that he’s also a wonderful person. I’m completely ruined. It was few months after he said he wanted to do it that he mentioned Julianne Moore. That just brought another level of euphoria. I’s incredibly moving to know that, because their work is already in books and already in museums, this film will be part of that heritage of their partnership. Also, working with Christine Vachon and Pamela Koffler and Todd, it’s very moving. It’s overwhelming.