May December - AD Introduction

This is an audio introduction for the 2023 Sky Original film May December. A thought provoking dark unsettling American drama with nervy subtle comic undertones. It makes for a seductive watch with discomfort hanging ever present in the air. The movies inspired by the disturbing real-life story of sex offender Mary Kay Letourneau.

The film follows Elizabeth Berry a television actress who travels to Savannah Georgia in the name of research to study the life of a controversial woman Gracie Atherton Yoo, for her next role.

In 1992 Gracie Atherton then aged 36 had been embroiled in a sensational sex scandal with a 13-year-old boy Joe Yoo having been caught out in the pet shop where they both worked. Later whilst serving a prison sentence Gracie gives birth to their first child.

The film takes place 23 years later in the summer of 2015 when Gracie and Joe are married with two more grown children, twins a girl and a boy, who are about to go off to college. They live a suburban existence on an island just off the coast.

We first meet Elizabeth as she arrives outside a boutique inn framed by mature trees in the historic district of Savannah. She is a slim attractive 36-year-old white woman with amber coloured snake eyes with clear flawless skin. Her long straight brunette hair is worn loose with a fringe.

She’s flirtatious and omits a palpable sexual energy. As the film progresses, she morphs into her subject channelling Gracie’s mannerisms, her smile, rhythm, lisping voice, her accent, posture, make up and fashion choices.

Elizabeth is often seen wearing casual attire, jeans and tops or floaty dresses. She turns up at the twins’ graduation ceremony having styled herself like Gracie. Both ladies wear large rimmed dark lensed sunglasses and loose white summer dresses. Elizabeth has hidden her fringe sweeping it across to one side.

Elizabeth makes copious notes about Gracie in her small jotter, as she interviews her friends and family or documents the brands of the makeup products Gracie uses. Elizabeth is an asthma sufferer and carries an inhaler in her burgundy handbag.

Gracie Atherton Yoo is a white 59-year-old petite alert sparrow like character with long straight ash blonde hair worn loose with an off-centre parting. Her oval face is softly lined. Her pale milky completion exudes a radiance, she has green eagle eyes with a gentle wide mouthed pout. Her sunny bright smile thinly masks the brittle frostiness she shows towards Elizabeth.

Although emotionally delicate, naïve and vulnerable, she’s controlling, manipulative and dominant with a menacing aura. She treats her husband Joe like a child giving him chores. Gracie has previously been married and has three other children from that relationship.

Gracie has a floundering home bakery business and is often seen in casual clothes and an apron or in southern belle floaty summer dresses.

Joe Yoo is 36 years old, he’s of mixed race; his mum was a Caucasian women his father’s Korean. He is a tall muscular handsome round-shouldered man with a mop of thick black hair. His face is square with a strong jaw line and large dark brown eyes.

He carries a melancholy air about him, only lighting up when he talks about his hobby, Monarch butterfly conservation. He is polite, childlike and unassuming, a stunted man child who’s never confronted what happened to him in his youth.

He drives a Jeep people carrier and works in a hospital as an x-ray technician wearing regulation blue scrubs. In his free time when not tending to his butterfly collection and milkweed plants, he spends hours in his den drinking beer while watching the television in comfortable casual clothing.

Joe is first and foremost a family man, bracing himself for the twin’s graduation and the impending realities of being an empty nester.

Mary is Joe and Gracie’s 18-year-old daughter. She has long thick black hair with a centre parting, framing her heart shaped face with high cheek bones and dark brown doe eyes. Mary has a broad smile and a bubbly personality but is sensitive to her mother’s back handed compliments. She’s of average height and is often seen in casual jeans and tops. At the graduation she wears a young cute white dress with sleeves to the elbows.

Charlie is Mary’s twin brother. He also has a mop of thick wavy black hair with a floppy fringe combed to the side, revealing his diamond shaped face. He has a slight build and looks younger than his eighteen years. His wardrobe is befitting of a teenager, jeans, t-shirts and casual shirts. At his graduation he wears smart cream trousers with a white shirt and red tie. He has a quiet disposition with a stubborn streak. To combat his severe calcium deficiency, he drinks a lot of milk.

Honour is Joe and Gracie’s oldest child, born behind bars. She is 22 years of age and lives away from home. She is petite in frame with a round welcoming face. Her soft winged eyeliner accentuates her large dark eyes. Her dyed auburn hair is curly and falls just below her shoulders. She is a ball of energy, straight talking and unapologetic.

Tom Atherton was Gracie’s childhood sweetheart and first husband. A straightforward white man now in his early 60’s. He is tall with rugged good looks and a full head of greying dark hair.

Georgie is Gracie and first husband Tom’s youngest child. He is tall and slim in his mid-thirties. He has dyed blonde curly hair and wears a lot of silver necklaces and rings. He is a singer in a band. A troubled damaged sensitive soul, chaotic with a manipulative streak. Cassidy 38 and Billy 40 are his older siblings.

Joe Senior is Joe’s Korean father in his 70’s. A heavy smoker and a man of few words. He lives alone in a flat near the Atherton Yoo family and uses a cane to walk.

Mr Henderson is the owner of Telfair Pet Shop. A tall trim white man in his seventies with a lived-in face with a neat moustache and beard.

Morris Sperber is a white man in his 60‘s. A criminal defence attorney. He has a warm smile and a New York accent.

A variety of the scenes take place on the idyllic Tybee Island where Joe and Gracie live in their large detached 1980’s style house with sloping split level roof lines and dormer windows. The property is nestled in a large plot amongst palm trees.

The vast uninterrupted skyline canopies the lush, slightly overgrown rear garden, backing onto the gently rippling ocean. A dock extends into the shallow waters. A striped awning hangs over the raised decking attached to the rear of the property, it houses garden furniture, a BBQ and an array of pot plants.

A partially built swimming pool with a few feet of dirty water lining the deep end is tucked to the side of the property. Internally the Atherton Yoo home is in a neat and comfortable decorative order.

A four-note piano refrain is added for dramatic effect at ill-fitting moments in the movie, highlighting the absurd.

Mirror scenes where Gracie and Elizabeth are in the high-end dress shop, Gracie’s ensuite and the restaurant ladies’ room, have the actresses staring down the barrel of the camera lens, emphasising the push pull dynamic of the women and the gradual change to Elizabeth’s appearance as she models herself on Gracie.

May December airs on Friday 8^th December at 14.15 on Sky Cinema Premiere. Audio description by Penelope Parisi.