“May December” screenwriter for comedy, tabloid inspiration – The Hollywood Reporter

This is what most aspiring screenwriters dream of: An Oscar-winning actress reads your script and convinces one of the leading independent filmmakers of the past 25 years to make it. It then premieres at the Cannes Film Festival and is sold to Netflix, all in time for awards season.

For Sammi Burch, the experience remains overwhelming — and understandably so, as her team of collaborators on her first produced screenplay includes director Todd Haynes, Oscar-winning actresses Natalie Portman (who also produced) and Julianne Moore, as well as former co-star Sami Burch. Riverdale Actor Charles Melton, who won major acclaim and an Oscar for his breakout role in the Netflix series May December.

Portman plays actress Elizabeth, who is set to star in a film about Gracie Moore, who had a scandalous affair with a 13-year-old boy, Joe, two decades earlier. Gracie and Joe (Milton) are now married and raising adult children. The couple’s happy facade begins to crack when Elizabeth Portman arrives to study Gracie to prepare for her role, bringing to light Joe’s complex and ill-considered trauma about their relationship as he prepares his children to go to college.

Burch spoke with THR about her collaboration with Haynes, the popular story that served as the nucleus for the screenplay’s premise, and how the film’s comedic undertones fit into the story’s larger human tragedy.

What is the origin of this scenario?

I was thinking about how it seems like all these popular stories from the ’90s are being reevaluated one by one. It struck me at some point in the Mary Kay Letourneau case that these children might have been adults. The idea of ​​an empty house for a couple like this seemed very profound to me. All the basics came from a conversation between me and my now husband, Alex Mechanic. From the beginning, we knew we wanted to make it fictional, and it was always on the brink of high school graduation — the idea that Joe first had to confront with what happened and the media onslaught that followed. And this network TV actress who had something to prove, it seemed like a way, with the amount of time and variation, to give more space and more air to these different elements to braid together so that we’re not just staring at a terrible recreation (of What Happened).

There’s definitely a trend you’re talking about – the OJ Simpson case, I’m Tonya, Pam and Tommy. What do you think it is about those stories that makes people, especially those who grew up at that time, want to revisit them from different perspectives?

I think it’s complicated. We couldn’t escape it. It really shocked me to learn that there are young people who don’t know about this condition. Some of these stories (when we were growing up) are as big and historical (to us) as the assassination of JFK. In some ways, we’re still dealing with that as a society — what the images were. (These stories) are reevaluated in a way that makes us say, “Wow, that wasn’t fair.” And sometimes I think it’s the same impulse as staring at a car crash. I’m divided. There’s something very icky about that, but I think it’s a natural human impulse.

You previously worked as a casting director, so you know a lot about actors. How did Elizabeth’s presence enable you to find the cracks in Joe and Gracie’s lives?

I was around a lot of the actors, a lot of that energy. The character of Elizabeth was a great opportunity to explore the element of vampirism and cannibalism that occurs heavily throughout this film, which is two-fold. It’s all about trying to understand Gracie. What did you learn? Was[her relationship with Joe]a natural impulse, like a predator in the woods? Or is there a degree of calculation and manipulation involved? The presence of an actress, a doppelgänger for Gracie, shakes things up for Joe. It also brings a lot of humour, sarcasm and criticism to this true crime machine. I think Natalie is very funny in the movie. I mean it’s all in her, but there’s a lot of hidden humor in how insincere Elizabeth is. The mask is there from the beginning, and there are moments when she lets it slip and we can see how she really feels. She is truly enjoying this experience.

When you wrote Elizabeth’s attempts to understand Gracie, did you feel similarly compelled to outline Letourneau’s inner life?

I didn’t need to do any research, because these were fictional, independent characters that I was trying to build and understand. But there is certainly a consequence of trying to find the truth in something, like a snake eating its own tail. I think there is an impossibility to really understand something like this. If you’re a social worker, this is certainly black and white. But (when) the complexities are revealed, it becomes murky. There were a lot of reflective qualities – I mean, it occurred to me a week ago that Charles was a TV actor who had something to improve on in this movie. There’s the fact that they didn’t have any rehearsal, and Natalie was really studying the character of Julian to play later in the movie. These boys (who were auditioning to play Joe in a movie-within-a-movie) were sent their audition links. They will make their own real list, then their imaginary list and lines. It makes a lot of sense, of course, with Todd, who has made an amazing career out of meditations on performance and identity, often mixed with fame. Not only is there merit in the actress, but in the way we have made these famous criminals as well.

The film takes place in a close-knit community outside Savannah, Georgia. How did you benefit from this setup?

The film was initially filmed in Camden, Maine. It was this isolated bubble that mirrored the bubble that Gracie had painstakingly built. Things get practical: Graduation (Gracie and Joe’s kids’ high school) is the most important item. The film had to be shot in the spring, and the period when everyone could shoot was the fall. So, we looked at places that could look like spring, and savannas were on the list. I spent a year there in art school, so I wrote a statement for Savannah/Tybee Island. Now I see it as completely necessary, it’s just that kind of city. It is the most amazing and beautiful place, but there is a sense of a kind of simmering rot beneath its history and its current denial (of that history).

The tone of the film is interesting. You mentioned humor and sarcasm, and there were several times where I laughed the whole time. The Golden Globe Awards even classified it as a comedy. But how did you manage this lightness in a story that had a very dark tone?

The way people responded to the film was very interesting. Some people are able to see the dark comedic elements and the heartbreak, others only see the heartbreak. I’d be more concerned if there were people who just watched our comedy and didn’t take any of it seriously. I think some people might misinterpret what the other group thinks is funny. There is no comedy at Joe’s expense. It was always designed to make room for something so human and so tragic.

It’s exciting when things are hard to categorize. There is a kind of ordeal that occurs when watching this film, especially watching it alone or in a crowded theater. People have different senses of humor. I still think of it as one of those hologram cards – you can see both depending on how the light falls on it. There are a few different types of humor in the text; Some are more glib, indicting the real crime machine or the actors, or just everyone’s reckless arrogance in searching for the truth. There’s something comical about that. But then some moments are release valves. It’s very uncomfortable. The New York Film Festival screening had a lot of laughs, and then they stopped, and you could feel when people were going, “Oh…”

What has it been like seeing the reactions on social media?

It was so surreal. There were points (on the festival circuit) where I thought, ‘Okay, this can’t get any crazier.’ And then when it came out on Netflix, it was like, “Oh, there’s more.” I mean the highs are so high. I’m not on Twitter, but I’ve seen some things. I saw reviews on Letterboxd that really impressed me. That’s what’s so interesting about Todd’s films, the range of reactions, especially when there’s a split in the ranks. It’s as if people who liked the movie are fighting over why. There are certain things people have tried to ask me that I won’t answer. I may have my own answer, but I won’t say.

Do you have an example?

Whether Georgie (Gracie’s son, played by Corey Michael Smith) is lying about Gracie’s past remains to be seen. I have my thoughts. This is a more obvious example of something intentionally left vague, but that’s really the point. This is the kind of movie you watch and talk about with your friends. What does that mean for you? How do you feel about that?

This story first appeared in the January standalone issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. Click here to subscribe.