“May December,” a movie inspired from the early ’90s tabloid scandal of a local Washington teacher, Mary Kay Letourneau, convicted of raping her sixth grade student, Vili Fualaau, might be one to leave alone.

The ex-couple first interacted when Fualaau was 12 and Letourneau was 34. After sexually interacting with the student for a little over a year, Letourneau was finally convicted of child rape. She then was sentenced with seven and a half years and ultimately gives birth to two girls while in custody. 

The Netflix movie, starring Julian Moore, Natalie Portman, and Charles Melton forecasts the life after the incident and conviction and spotlights the couple’s “golden life” following everything that happened. 

The acting of Julianne Moore, who plays Letourneau, in the movie is extremely good. She manages to capture the intensity and stress that came along with the infamous couple. In fact, all of the actors find ways to capture the emotions and the passion throughout the movie. They manage to incorporate the frustration of the couple, their children, and the community as a whole.

However, I do feel as though the story altogether was not fully captured. I’m sure the majority of the audience was aware of the incident that occurred, but I feel like more of the movie should have been the background and what led up to the life that had lived together. It felt as if you had to put the pieces together yourself, the pieces the movie should have included to begin with. 

Throughout the movie we’re looking into the life of the couple as a very basic point of view. Whereas the story sort of never develops, and as the audience, it feels like we’re staying in the same spot the whole time. 

I feel as if the director might have been angling for the audience to see a different side of Letourneau, but in the long run just makes her seem cunning. Watching the movie, I was hoping to peel back the layers of Letourneau, be more understanding of her, and explore her mind. At the end of the movie though, I had more layers to her than I began with. 

As the movie progresses, we only get a few glimpses of Fualaau. I think the movies should have revolved more of the trauma revolving around him and what his mind pertained to because of the incident. The movie never really goes into depth of the feelings of the characters, and kind of leaves it up to the audience to decipher.

Overall, I think the movie is one that could use a little more detail and background information included within it. It did a good job displaying the couple’s life following the incident but doesn’t do a good job counteracting that with what happened before the conviction and sentencing.