Is Natalie Portman the Most Overrated Actress in Hollywood?
After May December
I watched May December last night. In this film, just released on Netflix, Julianne Moore plays a quasi Mary Kay Letourneau, who as a married American mother in her 30s, had engaged in a sexual relationship with a seventh grade boy. She became pregnant by him, was jailed, and then married him when he came of age.
Natalie Portman also stars as a completely fictitious figure, Elizabeth Berry, a 36-year-old TV actress and Juilliard graduate, who arrives in Savannah, Georgia to spend time with Moore’s character, Gracie Atherton, 24 years after the bizarre child abuse scandal hit the tabloids, in order to best portray Gracie in a film.
So the actress, as played by Portman, observes and interacts with this woman and her much younger husband, along with their children and friends, like a cat toying with a lizard.
It is not unusual when an actor is playing a living person in a biopic for the actor and the subject to meet. Diana Nyad was even on the set of the also just released Nyad while Annette Bening was playing her. James Franco spent time with mountain climber Aron Ralston, the man he portrayed in his Oscar-nominated performance in 127 hours. Tom Hanks met Charlie Wilson. Morgan Freeman knew Nelson Mandela. Angelina Jolie spent a great…
