As the critically acclaimed “May December” heads toward what will no doubt be a multiple-nomination awards season, director Todd Haynes and screenwriter Samy Burch find themselves on the receiving end of one of the questions their film asks: What do filmmakers owe the people who inspire the stories they tell, particularly when those stories involve abuse or exploitation?
“May December” follows Elizabeth (Natalie Portman), an actor, as she visits the home of Gracie (Julianne Moore) and Joe (Charles Melton), an infamous couple who began an intimate “relationship” when Gracie was in her 30s and Joe was 13. Gracie was convicted of rape and spent several years in jail, but they eventually married; they have three children, and live with as much privacy as their small town will allow. Elizabeth has been cast to play Gracie in a film and wants to spend time with them as research.
Though certain details have been changed and the main storyline is fiction, “May December” is obviously and admittedly inspired by the headline-generating scandal of Mary Kay Letourneau, who raped and then eventually married her former sixth-grade student Vili Fualaau. Indeed, some of the dialogue was drawn directly from interviews given by the couple over the years.
This week Fualaau, who divorced Letourneau in 2017 but was with her until her death in 2020, expressed unhappiness with the film, and the fact — ironically, given the film’s narrative — that no one had consulted him while making it.
“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,” he told 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.”
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This is not a good look for “May December,” which Burch described in these pages as a “satire of the industry and the vampiric nature of playing real people who are alive,” but neither the filmmakers’ decision not to involve Fualaau nor his unhappiness is unusual.
When working with historical or well-publicized material, writers and filmmakers often decide that the story they want to tell will not benefit from consulting or informing those who inspired it. Even when it comes to biopics, which “May December” certainly is not.
“Maestro” may have been made with the full participation and well-publicized blessings of Leonard Bernstein’s children, but Sean Durkin, who made “The Iron Claw,” another awards contender this year, did not reach out to the surviving Von Erich brother, Kevin, until after he had written the script detailing the famous wrestling family’s story, which, for dramatic purposes, omitted one of the brothers entirely. Kevin Von Erich (played by Zac Efron in the film) has said he understands the omission but pushed back against the depiction of his father, Fritz (Holt McCallany).
Inevitably, any film or television series made about or inspired by actual events is going to make someone, somewhere, deeply unhappy.
Vili Fualaau, center, in 1998.
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(John Froschauer / Associated Press)
The late, great Olivia de Havilland famously sued, at age 100, Ryan Murphy for his profane and gossipy depiction of her in “Feud: Bette and Joan.” Football star Michael Oher, who earlier this year accused the Tuohy family of cutting him out of money earned by their participation in “The Blind Side,” took issue early on with the film’s depiction of him as “dumb.” Amanda Knox has repeatedly called out cinematic versions of her story — she was wrongly convicted of murder in Italy and imprisoned for four years before being exonerated — particularly the Matt Damon-starring film “Stillwater,” in which the Knox-inspired lead was actually guilty.
More recently, almost every living historical figure depicted in HBO’s “Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty” disparaged its accuracy, and friends and supporters of the British royal family recently pressured Netflix to add a “this is a fictionalized dramatization” disclaimer to “The Crown.”
De Havilland lost her suit (and her attempt to take it to the Supreme Court); laws regarding free speech offer wide protections to fiction and fictionalized accounts, with good reason — without an acceptance of literary license, some of the best, most powerful films, series and novels would not exist.
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But if writers and directors do not have a legal obligation to the public figures at the center of their stories, do they have a moral one? Not every public-figure inspiration is created equal; there is a difference between the queen of England and a man who is known for marrying the woman who raped him when he was a child.
In recent years, there has been a growing awareness of the effect that true crime stories, however fictionalized, can have on the people involved. For instance, films coming off #MeToo have stressed the importance of respecting survivors’ experiences, and Ryan Murphy’s “Dahmer — Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story” was criticized for re-traumatizing the families of Dahmers victims.
No one would compare “May December” with “Dahmer” or even “Stillwater” — as Haynes and Burch have said repeatedly, the Letourneau/Fualaau relationship was a springboard, not a blueprint — but there is no reading of that story, from the initial crime to the subsequent salacious publicity around their eventual marriage, in which Fualaau is not a victim. No matter how sincere and fine a re-imagining of his life might be, the decision not to involve him in some way is, at the very least, troubling.
Especially since the film directly addresses the exploitation of Hollywood adaptations. In “May December,” Elizabeth’s encounters with Joe seem to offer, at first, hope of deliverance. She sees what the young man, still very much in thrall to Grace, does not: that the “relationship” began when Joe was too young to consent to it and continued when he was still too young to understand what it would cost him.
But Elizabeth uses Joe as well — her “research” extends to having sex with him and then all but shoving him out the door. As far as the Elizabeth character, rich with “creative-process” narcissism, embodies Hollywood, “May December” portrays our thirst for retelling sensational events as destructive. Glimpsed at the end, the film Elizabeth is working on appears far from high art, adding insult to injury.
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The power of “May December” comes from Grace and Elizabeth’s relentless battle for, if not truth, then narrative control. Indeed, the only “good” major character in the film is Joe, who is depicted, tragically, as something of a hapless bystander in his own life.
Which, given the decision not to involve Fualaau, feels uncomfortably as if the filmmakers were trying to have their cake and eat it too.
Yes, the people who inspire “based on real events” films and series we love are often unhappy with the cinematic results. But, as with the renewed discomfort over “The Blind Side,” Fualaau’s words feel more poignant, and important, than, say, Magic Johnson refusing to watch “Winning Time” or Judi Dench protesting the inaccuracies of “The Crown.”
Unlike the Lakers or the royal family or Olivia de Havilland, Fualaau is not a public figure beyond the one thing the world knows about him; like Knox and, to a lesser extent, Oher, he was pushed into the public eye when he was young, vulnerable and a victim of circumstance, which in Fualaau’s case meant the victim of a crime.
Mary Kay Letourneau in court in 1998.
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(Alan Berner / AP)
There is, as Knox recently pointed out in a lengthy social media thread reacting to Fualaau’s comments, no legal way for public figures to control the way they are used in fiction. Again, for very good reason. Writers and artists use familiar figures as cultural touchstones to tell all sorts of stories, many of which have little to do with the actual people or events that inspired them, and audiences are expected, reasonably, to understand this.
Some of these stories will be good, some bad, a few great; historians will make lists of corrections, critics will express outrage or appreciation, and we can all discuss the complicated nature of fact, fiction, myth, memory and storytelling, which is always a good thing.
But sometimes, it is worth remembering that at the center of those touchstones are real people who, often through no intention of their own, watched helplessly as their stories became public domain.
Starring: Kansas Bowling, Jessa Jupiter Flux and Julie Kashmanian Directed by: Jason Zink Rated: NR Running Time: 80 minutes
Our Score: 3.5 out of 5 Stars
The found footage serial killer subgenre is surprisingly crowded with films like “Man Bites Dog,” “Maniac,” and the “Creep” franchise. So while it can be difficult to stand out, 2025’s “Looky-loo” and now “looky-loo: PART II” carve out their own identity by trapping us with very little dialogue and a killer who sees the camera as a creative tool rather than a simple recording device.
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For the uninitiated (like I was a month ago), “Looky-loo” follows an aspiring filmmaker whose obsession with cameras evolves into voyeurism, stalking, and eventually murder. Not just one murder, either. He begins staging his victims like actors preparing for a scene, finding as much satisfaction in the production as the killing itself. That’s important because “PART II” picks up almost immediately afterward, with the killer seemingly releasing “Looky-loo” to the public like a drive-in snuff film. He even scrawls “PART II” in blood across a refrigerator, as if he’s proudly unveiling the title card for his next masterpiece.
My perspective may be slightly skewed because I watched both films within a 36-hour span. I never really had time to sit with the first film before diving into the sequel. While I think the original is a solid exercise in restraint, “PART II” noticeably improves on many of its quieter shortcomings. The first film feels a bit like “In a Violent Nature.” Instead of marinating in dense forests and ambient sound, “Looky-loo” lingers in sweaty breathing, uncomfortable silence, and victims blissfully unaware that a killer is standing in the closet. I think it works, but I can also understand why some viewers find it painfully slow.
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“PART II” replaces much of that restraint with confidence. The killer stomps upstairs without hesitation, casually raids victims’ refrigerators, drinks their beverages, and only occasionally bothers wearing gloves, as if DNA evidence simply stopped existing. None of these moments feel like plot holes. They’re deliberate choices that suggest someone who either no longer fears getting caught or genuinely believes he’s untouchable. It’s difficult to know which because the film still reveals remarkably little about who he actually is.
What we do learn is perhaps the most interesting development of the sequel. I think our killer is creating incel art. The first film hints at it, but “PART II” pushes the idea much further. While he expands his victims to include men, the murders aren’t treated equally. The men often become victims of blunt rage. The women become productions. They’re staged, framed, and lingered upon with a disturbing artistic obsession. Even more revealing is his growing fixation on female artists. It’s almost as if he can’t tolerate the idea that women might be more creative, more fulfilled, or more talented than he is. The murders begin feeling less like random acts of violence and more like warped attempts to prove he’s the only true artist in the room.
That’s ultimately what elevates the “Looky-loo” series. Like “The Poughkeepsie Tapes,” it invites you to revisit it because so much of the story exists between the scenes rather than inside them. Every repeated viewing uncovers another clue about the psychology hiding behind the camera. Unlike charismatic fictional killers like Hannibal Lecter or Dexter Morgan, this murderer isn’t interested in charming us. He wants us to appreciate the process: the stalking, the waiting, the intrusion, and finally the kill. In his mind, we’re his audience. He believes we should admire his work just as much as he does. And if we don’t, we might as well become part of his next production.
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“looky loo: PART II” will have its Midwest premiere at Hysteria Fest in St. Louis on Thursday July 9th.
In an era hallmarked by what experts call a “sexrecession,” Six Sex is a symbol of liberation.
The Argentine baddie fashions herself as a baby-voiced, bikini-clad fembot, beamed in from the clubs of Buenos Aires — and has become known for cheeky, instructive celebrations of desire. Her songs are designed to galvanize like-minded club rats into Dionysian revelry, or, in the case of the song “How to Make Your Ass Bigger,” squats.
To a certain subset of the Latine underground, she represents a pure-hearted hypersexuality. Yet, for the artist behind the persona, Francisca Agustina Cuello, this wasn’t always the intention.
“I don’t know if it was because I still had to keep my innocence or what, but I didn’t envision the project that way,” she said, calling from a hotel room in Barcelona. “That response sort of came about from the people, towards me. So, I said OK, I’m making it my own.”
In doing so, Cuello has churned out six thumping EPs as Six Sex, a campy character that she describes as a “fable” — a mix of “fantasía y hedonismo.”
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That dynamic is taken to extremes on her debut album, “Ultra”, released June 6. It’s a dark and propulsive journey through decades of electronic dance music, best described by its own opening words portending “ultra terrorific fantasy.” (The phrase conjures up images of grandeur, but really, it evokes that “Blades of Glory” quote: “no one knows what it means, but it’s provocative.”)
“I feel like nothing I say is all that serious,” she said about her lyrics. “It’s a thing about my personality to be silly and goof around.”
“Ultra” centers Cuello’s winking, suggestive sense of humor. “Not Your Mom” features a conversation with a garbled, omnipotent voice akin to the parents in Charlie Brown; “FUchi!” features schoolyard taunts about “low dickie energy;” the album ends with “No More Porn,” a playful yet powerful subversion of sexual expectations.
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“At the same time, for me, that acts as a filter,” she added with a laugh. “Weeding out the people who get scandalized by it, and identifying the people who get it and say: ‘Yas, yo también quiero tener cuatro novios.’”
Earlier this year, Cuello took the stage at Don Quixote, performing in front of a sold-out crowd for her Los Angeles debut. The smell of sweat permeated the air as she ripped through several of her hits — including collaborations with Reysha Rami and German producer MCR-T. Every single one of her signature ponytail flips sent the room into hysterics. The audience screamed every word at the top of their lungs; it was the loudest, most raucous show I’d been to in years.
Cuello took a breather in the middle of her world tour to chat with De Los over Zoom about all things Six Sex: her new record, her writing style and how it feels to connect with fans spun into febrile intensity.
This interview has been condensed for clarity and was translated from Spanish to English.
“[I’m] weeding out the people who get scandalized,” says Six Sex of her provocative music.
(Catalina Jacobo)
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I was really taken by the “Ultra” album cover. You’re wearing a white bikini and in this “come to Jesus” pose. What was the goal? [laughs] It was hard, because I wanted the cover to represent what the entire journey of the album meant to me. I was looking for something strong and heavy in visual terms, because with “Ultra”, this is the first time I’ve finished a long, heavy project and I see the start of something. It’s like something new was unlocked. I found a new way to convey feelings, and a new way to create as well. It’s not like I just finished, and it is what it is. Rather, it is the beginning of something bigger.
Is there an element of separation at all between the artistry and you as a person? I think they’re pretty close. It’s as if Six Sex was sort of a fable, or like a hentai or comic [version of] my life. It’s also happened that things I wrote as a joke later became reality. But generally, I draw inspiration from things that actually happened to me.
Is it weird to put those intimate experiences on an album? No, not for me. Because I’m not speaking so seriously, I don’t feel exposed. Even though my persona and my character are very close to one another, I don’t have to prove anything to anyone. I’m not trying to make you believe in something. The songs stop being about me as soon as someone else listens to them. There are certain things we can all see ourselves represented in, and I think my music aims for that, too.
I want to ask about your performance style. I saw you live in Los Angeles and was really taken by the energy exchange between yourself and the crowd. How do you approach live performance? Nowadays, I’m in a balance between performance and being a human being that connects with people and can pause to look in the eyes of the audience to register how they feel. I like being in a showgirl role, and at the same time, knowing when to step out of it.
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Sometimes I go up there after having a crappy day, thinking that I’m gonna screw it up. And when I get up there and connect with the people, everything flows in a perfect way.
Does the music transform when it’s performed live, versus on a record? A lot of your music seems designed to be played in the club. I think it’s very personal. For me, I’m a bit autistic; sometimes when I’m at a show, I get different sensations. It really depends on the person. I like seeing people’s reactions live when I start playing these songs for the first time. People were super hyped. They were enjoying them and jumping around a lot. It feels really fresh.
You reference ‘90s club classics all over “Ultra,” including by U.K. band the Prodigy on “Bitch Up.” How did these sounds come into your life? These sounds evoke a special kind of nostalgia for me. Even though I hadn’t been listening to them lately, they sounded like something I wanted to bring back to the table — songs my uncle used to listen to when I was really young. Like a CD [of] pirated songs that somehow ended up at my house, and at the time I was like, “Wow, what is this music?”
There’s an element of Six Sex that gives “fembot,” like a female, sexy robot. I’m curious if you feel that playing out in your work. [laughs] I didn’t know about the fembot thing. I don’t use Twitter. I [keep] a bubble… against some things that I don’t know. But I’ve always liked the idea that people have that perception of me, to some extent.
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How do you feel about the rise of AI as a musician, especially considering your persona adopts that perception? I mean… I don’t have a formed opinion on the matter. I do think that, I don’t know, it’s all very relative. For one thing, I obviously feel like it strips away the human value, but at the same time, it’s also a tool for humans. So it’s kind of contradictory. I feel weird about it…. I don’t know.
Zooming out, I’ve noticed Argentina has been having a musical moment over the last few years between yourself, Ca7riel y Paco Amoroso, Juana Rozas… How do you feel Argentina being represented or even challenged in your music? I feel that culturally, Argentina is a very rich country. However, I do feel like, over generations, a paradigm was broken, and new sounds have been created that don’t necessarily abandon the roots of our music, but were created out of counterculture.
That same kind of counterculture is what makes Argentina be in such turmoil. It’s also the context of our country. Economic, political, social. The key Argentinian figures we refer to nowadays are constantly changing. And that allows you to listen to a variety of genres from Argentina, from people doing different things, and at the same time raising the flag and saying: “Yo soy argentino.” And we love that.
A still from ‘Enola Holmes 3’
| Photo Credit: Netflix
Enola Holmes 3sees Philip Barantini (Adolescence) take over direction from Fleabag’s Harry Bradbeer while Jack Thorne (another Adolescence alum) continues as writer from the first two films. The supposed darker take is not very apparent in this tale featuring the consultant detective’s sister.
Based on Nancy Springer’s charming The Enola Holmes Mysteries, Enola Holmes 3 opens with a wedding in Malta. Enola (Millie Bobby Brown), the younger sister of Sherlock (Henry Cavill), and a detective in her own right, as we have seen from the earlier films, is getting married to sweet, idealistic Lord Tewkesbury (Louis Partridge).
Sherlock is in Malta for the wedding which he strongly disapproves, believing Enola will not be able to pursue her career as a detective once she marries and becomes Lady Tewkesbury. Enola has her own doubts about the marriage — not about Tewkesbury but about his world, the people in it and their expectations.
Enola Holmes 3 (English)
Director: Philip Barantini
Cast: Millie Bobby Brown, Louis Partridge, Himesh Patel, Sharon Duncan-Brewster, Henry Cavill, Helena Bonham Carter, Susan Wokoma
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Runtime: 105 minutes
Storyline: As Enola prepares to marry Lord Tewkesbury in Malta, her brother goes missing and the game is afoot
When she finally gets into the carriage for her wedding, she realises she is being followed by a masked rider. After a thrilling chase involving the dropping of many bridal veils, the pursuer is revealed to be Dr Watson (Himesh Patel), Sherlock’s flatmate, friend and chronicler (not yet, though). The mask, the good doctor explains, is for allergies.
He was thundering after Enola because Sherlock has vanished, probably kidnapped, as he was working on another case. When Enola’s future mother-in-law, Lady Tewkesbury (Hattie Morahan) also goes missing, the wedding is forgotten as Enola races against time to solve the mystery.
A still from ‘Enola Holmes 3’
| Photo Credit:
Netflix
The pieces of the puzzle include the Battle of Khost in Afghanistan, looted gold, the Maltese fight for independence in the person of Mikiel Mizzi (Joe Azzopardi) from the Partito Anti-Riformista, and the criminal mastermind Moriarty (Sharon Duncan-Brewster).
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Enola’s mother, Eudoria (Helena Bonham Carter) and her friend Edith (Susan Wokoma) are skulking around giving Enola invisible support as Eudoria is in trouble with the law for her dynamite-forward ways.
Enola Holmes 3 zips by in a series of frantic action sequences, quips and callbacks. The storybook look is propped up by those amazing pop-ups. Darker themes arrive in lines such as Moriarty saying “There are few British names that are not tarnished with the pain of its empire.”
Brown has created an endearing heroine in her Enola, even if her habit of breaking the fourth wall, while definitely reduced, has gone way beyond twee to be outright annoying. Cavill’s Sherlock is brave and beautiful and just that little bit cross, while Carter’s Eudoria walks the line between gently eccentric and decidedly odd as she dispenses gems of wisdom including “the puzzle is always as devious as the setter.”
Fast, fun and eminently forgettable, this is popcorn entertainment at its most efficient.
