Although Netflix drama May December has racked up Golden Globe Awards nominations and critical acclaim, Vili Fualaau, isn't happy with the film's depiction of him.
The 40-year-old and his relationship with the late Mary Kay Letourneau were the inspiration for the Todd Haynes-directed movie, where the character of Joe Yoo (Charles Melton) is loosely based on Fualaau. Melton's opposite, Julianne Moore, plays Gracie Atherton-Yoo, a 36-year-old woman who begins a predatory relationship with Joe, who's 13 when they meet.
In reality, Letourneau was 34 years old when she pursued Fualaau, who was then a 12-year-old student that she groomed in 1996. Letourneau pleaded guilty to two counts of child rape and served time in prison, later marrying Fualaau in 2004 upon her release. The couple separated in 2019, one year before Letourneau's death from colorectal cancer.
Because May December shares an uncanny resemblance to Fualaau and Letourneau's story, Fualaau said that he felt exploited by the film's production team, who didn't contact him for insight. “If they had reached out to me, we could have worked together on a masterpiece. Instead, they chose to do a ripoff of my original story," Fualaau said, per The Hollywood Reporter.
“I’m offended by the entire project and the lack of respect given to me — who lived through a real story and is still living it,” he continued.
Fualaau added that he admires films "that capture the essence and complications of real-life events," adding that Netflix reduced his life to something simplistic. “Those kinds of writers and directors — someone who can do that — would be perfect to work with, because my story is not nearly as simple as this movie [portrays],” Fualaau said.
Ironically, in the film itself, acctress Elizabeth Berry (played by Natalie Portman) embeds herself into the lives of Joe Yoo and Gracie Atherton-Yoo to get a better understanding of the characters—and things get very complicated from there.
Around the movie's release, some cast and crew members denied that the plot centered on Letourneau, although it was director Todd Haynes who admitted it was based on the couple's scandal. Haynes told THR that he initially tried to stray from the real story, “but then there were times when it became very, very helpful to get very specific about the research and we learned things from that relationship."
