‘May December’ Movie Title Meaning Explained, Director Reveals Two Reasons Behind It

The new movie May December is currently streaming on Netflix and it’s also getting a lot of awards attention.

While there are lots of people who probably understand the meaning of the title immediately, plenty of others are likely clueless to what the term “May December” stands for.

In the movie, a married couple buckles under the pressure when an actress arrives to do research for a film about their past, twenty years after their notorious tabloid romance gripped the nation. The film is loosely based on the true story of Mary Kay Letourneau, who had an illegal relationship with a sixth-grade student in the 1990s.

So, what does the title mean?

AARP says that a “May-December romance” is “an age-old term for an amorous relationship between two people with a considerable age difference. The months symbolize the seasons, with spring representing youth and winter representing old age.”

Director Todd Haynes confirms that the title of the movie is in reference to this term and points out that British audiences aren’t as familiar with it.

“It’s interesting when something is known in the American vernacular and not in the British. It’s definitely a term that doesn’t translate out of the English language well,” Todd told Letterboxd. “I’ve just always thought of it as a slightly old-fashioned, demure way of describing a relationship between an elder and a younger person with a big age gap. May is spring, December is winter—that range.”

He added, “But the film’s title plays into the month of May, too, and May is the bracketed month of an inevitability around the summer. It begins with a Memorial Day celebration and ends with graduation. So all this anxiety and nerves are circulating through that month and it plays into the title as well.”

Julianne Moore and Charles Melton‘s characters have a 23-year age gap and their relationship began when Gracie was 36 and Joe was just 13.

Find out why people are baffled by the movie’s Golden Globes nominations.