Review Tales

“……in contrast to tragedy which is based on some misrecognition or ignorance, melodrama always involves some unexpected and excessive knowledge possessed not by the hero, but by his/her other, the knowledge imparted to the hero……”

This is an excerpt from Slavoj Zizek succinctly comparing tragedy and melodrama. For Zizek, a tragic figure knows too little and a melodramatic figure knows too much. I find it interesting that tragedies occur to the naive, maybe by fate, before getting a chance to change it. On the other hand, melodramas are about characters losing their naïveté and realizing the chaos they are surrounded by and then, in their heightened emotion, desperately try to get out of it!

The Co-Existence of Melodrama and Camp in Bollywood

I think the compulsion to distinguish between melodrama and camp is such a deeply Western one. As someone who grew up on early 2000s Bollywood, both can co-exist, including when tackling heavy topics. Kal Ho Na Ho is about a man with a terminal illness concealing this from his loved ones, and it has the entire Pretty Woman song sequence, while also innately referencing a 70s Bollywood classic (Anand). There’s also Om Shanti Om, a film which manages to be a melodrama, a comedy, camp, satire, and a love letter to Bollywood all at the same time. I’ve felt it more as years have gone by that Hollywood has become more cynically corporate, with the vast majority of audiences refusing to feel authentically. Everything is ironic, or “above” melodrama. Detachment and apathy are preferable to the discomfort from seeing the ugliness of extreme emotion. I notice this sometimes in myself, too, and it frightens me. I wish people would allow themselves to feel more! 

The Emotional Terrain in May December

I remember the commotion in late 2023 over a certain Netflix film about real life grooming and how it was “inappropriate melodrama” This was Film Twitter introducing me to May December. I had to figure out what everyone else was on about, especially after the film got Golden Globes buzz for Best Comedy nomination (a la Get Out)! To say that my expectations were subverted would be an understatement. May December is not a straightforward drama, comedy or even a thriller, but it can feel like any of those from one scene to another. The film plays with form to take what could have otherwise been a harrowing recollection of real-life abuse and turns it into an exploration of true crime as a form of tragic voyeurism. There is certainly camp just as there is tragedy. In true Tim Burton Gothic tradition, a couple (Julianne Moore and Charles Melton) lives in the big mansion, trapped in a deeply unhealthy psychosexual relationship, until they are disturbed by an outsider (Natalie Portman). 

The Balance of Camp and Tragedy

Melton’s character perspective is never satirized or ridiculed, but the way director Todd Haynes approaches his character’s truths gives the audience an emotional cushion – we laugh through the absurdity and artifice of the Moore/Portman dynamic, but that gives us the endorphin level to not be destroyed when we fully see Merton’s damage. I laughed the opening scene where Portman is trying to be sweet over a package in a mail, only to discover it’s a box containing literal feces. If that is not funny, I sincerely do not understand humour. That scene alone got the most spontaneous and effortless laughter from me the entire year. 

The humour in May December came in some ways from the sheer discomfort of sitting in awkward scenarios. It felt like deliberate little moments to give the audience brief moments to breathe, even if for a short moment. But then I felt equal amounts of disgust when Portman’s character pretended to be having sex in the pet store (Portman’s casting seems meta considering she made her debut at the tender age of 13 in Leon where she plays a 12-year-old who expresses herself sexually). 

Exploring Exploitation and Manipulation

Director Todd Haynes never lets you forget this is a story of two women taking advantage of a youth and then telling him, “You’re an adult. You wanted this. You did this.” Time and again, the women disguise their exploitation as genuine concern for this young man. 

When I first saw the film, I thought Haynes deliberately put Portman in a comedy about a bad actress, Moore in a melodrama about a deeply disturbed woman and Melton in an absolutely honest drama about trauma. The notion that this actress decides to spend an extended period of time with this groomer in order to gain insights into portraying her is such a giveaway! Portman attends Moore’s floral arrangement class – to meticulously study the way Moore trims a stem!? This movie is full of situational comedic elements like this. It is like one big mockumentary without the hidden cameras. There are dramatic moments but it just a slice of life story about a dysfunctional couple and fame hungry actress. Judging from all the needless online controversy still surrounding it today, I imagine May December must play like a Ludovico Technique for the current era:

Those who can’t bear to sit through anything beyond their immediate comfort level for fear it may actually cause a genuine unpleasant emotional reaction.

Those who watch movies not to have their viewpoints challenged, but affirmed.

Those who can’t discuss or intellectualize the choices directors or characters make, because that would require focusing on somebody besides themselves.

Those who have no room for ambiguity and interpretation – as if a movie’s job is to spell out exactly how the viewer is expected to think and feel.