Alternate Best Actor 2023: Charles Melton in May December

Charles Melton did not receive an Oscar nomination, despite winning several critic's awards, for portraying Joe Yoo in May December.

May December follows an actress Elizabeth (Natalie Portman) as preps for a role by meeting and investigating a woman Gracie (Julianne Moore) who had a sexually inappropriate relationship with an underage child, and later married him.
 

Charles Melton previously is an actor I didn't really notice much in the few things I had seen him in, in fact didn't notice he was in them other than Poker Face, where he played a fine though not standout killer of the week. So hearing about his standout work in this film I was very much interested to see what exactly he had in him, in the role of the now aged former victim of sexual abuse, though married to his predator. And I'll admit watching it the first time I was still wondering in the early scenes of the film, where despite getting a bit more focus camerwise found Melton just kind of there in his early scenes where Elizabeth comes to visit and tries to get to know him and Gracie. Melton's performance frankly seems a bit bland as he goes about this seemingly doting around his wife as we see him. Always there for her to lie on and just laughs off a box of sent over crap, literally, as though it is standard procedure. Melton's performance doesn't seem to have much to it in these early scenes as he presents just a man just kind of doing whatever his wife wants and being the image of a potential "ideal" of someone who is doing whatever he can to support his wife. There is no complication in that rather he seems to be existing in this state of a  kind of created being, with a certain malaise underlying it all. As he speaks just in a subdued if not also unremarkable way, just being kind of well "there". Which might sound like I am currently tearing this performance a new one in my description of it all so far, but trust me I'm not. 

Rather, Melton's performance is creating the image for the outside of the man who seems to be compliant in his own former abuse by the way he just seems to be existing so calmly in this state. Although Melton's performance would seem bland, what it is doing is actually setting up for the shift. As his line deliveries are almost like afterthoughts of the man just barely putting himself into conversations between Gracie and Elizabeth. His manner is always different, he is always just there seeming to wait to be supported, and seemingly just alright with everything that is going on. It might seem boring in fact, but what Melton is doing is setting much up with this performance. By being a man of no importance it would seem, just going about his life as this near drone under the sway of Gracie. Although there are moments where Melton speaks just a little more in his performance, which seems to speak much more. When for example Gracie is less open to some of Elizabeth's questions, Melton's face denotes a quiet anxiety as well. When Elizabeth tries to ask him a few more questions early on, Melton's low key great though by actually playing it so stiff. In that what Melton's doing as he's speaking his lines with this kind of just functioning statements, and when pressed to analyze anything about himself such as the fact that he has college age kids at such a young age, Melton's little break and sudden hesitations gives the hint of that all is far from right with Joe, despite how he may seem much of the time. Perhaps the most staggering scene in this stage of his performance is the one with his father where their interaction couldn't be more distant, however outside of the watchful eye of Gracie, you see Melton's performance just slightly but profoundly to suggest a real sorrow, however a sorrow perhaps Joe doesn't entirely understand. 

Although all this would be maybe looking too much into this if there was a very exact and brilliant gradual change in Melton's performance as Joe the more Elizabeth interacts with him and the more she causes, if only for selfish reasons on her part, to think more about his past. When for example she asks about his habit of saving butterflies, Melton is great in the way we see the malaise partially remove itself from him as he lets out excitement about his quiet passion. Just a little bit and Melton's so good because he almost seems to be struggling against a kind of conditioning in every moment of the conversation. He's kind of showing himself but not fully. And we have more of this when Elizabeth asks him more for his side of the story where Melton is great in his run down of Joe's version of the events, which is an incredible mix in his performance between conditioning and seeming truth which he differentiates in his performance. When telling it as though he is somehow the one who wanted to be preyed on by a much older woman, Melton recites the lines as though very much Joe reciting his lines where each point seems so specifically said with this overdone calm and consideration for selling the perspective that has been brainwashed into him. Again when Joe talks a little more about his own family, having lost his mom and dealt with his distant father and his own problems with girls that were his own age. The emotion as he drifts to these lines suddenly feels real and more importantly suddenly feels very raw and powerful as he speaks these words as filled with so much more anxiety and more importantly truth. We see in the same scene from Melton the man who he truly is in what has happened to him and the man who has been "crafted' by Gracie. 

We see the contrast between Joe and Gracie, when she has a mental breakdown, and Melton portrays this sad sort of reduction of himself to be her "rescuer" every time and is a most frozen in arrested development. This is against when we see him with his adult children, where Melton portrays the "dad" at moments where you again see a break in his behavior. His interactions with them are more natural than with Gracie and you see the moment of seeming attempts at real happiness albeit broken in their way still. Something that comes out more when he talks to his son on the roof of his house and they both get high. Melton is great in the scene because in the moment, he shows the man unencumbered by any of the forced expectations put on him by Gracie. Melton's breakdown reveals more than just a guy not knowing how to deal with the drugs, rather a man seeing his emotions more directly for once. His delivery is so powerful because it is a man so sloppily coming out with any sense of self and trying to explain himself to his son. Melton brings such a seething desperation in the moment of just showing how truly broken the man is in the moment, and struggling to try to fully connect with his son beyond the confines of the mental prison Gracie has put him in. Melton shows the mess within the man's mind when he begins to face it, though what we see as the film progresses is the man coming more and more to terms with his mental anguish. Melton's performance basically shedding off that state we originally saw him in through the first act of the film, and we see the shifting in the man as he seems to be finally doing any reflection whatsoever on what was done to him at a young age. 

Part of this comes in when Elizabeth purposefully seduces him, seemingly just for her own research for her role and little else, where Melton's performance is great in the aftereffect of it because you see his reaction closer to like a teenage boy in the moment. You see suddenly shame reflect on his face and anxiety as you see him thinking about Gracie, though not as sadness but rather as an internalized fear. Melton though articulates so much pent up hesitation and frustration that speaks to a history of repression. When Elizabeth dismisses his whole life as "a story", Melton's performance is very effective in showing just how broken Joe is as he brings such a natural, unnatural quality, and by that we get this sense of adult like betrayal in his anger towards Elizabeth's blitheness, while also showing the sheer mess as he falls into this petulant childlike delivery of any line speaking towards thinking that Elizabeth cared for him. And with this Melton shows the man who doesn't want his emotions played with but also the boy whose whole idea of romance, attraction and sexual behavior is completely broken by what was done to him as a child. He's equally fantastic in the following scene with Gracie, where you see the man no longer in the sunken state but yes in the submissive state as he tries to talk to Gracie. Where he and Moore don't have chemistry of a romantic pair, rather you see consistently this state of manipulation. Starting with this meek way of trying to get beyond her control in her way and genuinely asking if he was too young to make the decisions she claims he made to pursue the relationship. Melton is heartbreaking because you sense the years of anxiety but also mental grooming he is struggling through as he shows deep down it is just a man looking for answers for this life of his, which Gracie treats only as an infraction. Melton is very moving then in his final scenes in the film where we see him with his daughter before graduation and you have the hint of a more complete man in the honest way he presents his love to his daughter. In the moment Melton shows the one part of Joe that isn't controlled or broken in any way and that's the love for his kids. With his final reaction to seeing his kids graduate high school being incredible work that offers an end to his character without words. As you see that love in his eyes, the man is moved as a man should be to see his kid, but this slowly becomes mixed in with all the trauma the man has gone through and is finally truly feeling as he breaks down in the moment so painfully though poignantly as you do see the joy of children with the suffering of his plight. This is great work by Charles Melton because what he does is present you with the surface idea, which he slowly cracks at then reveals the truth in his powerful portrait of man finally realizing his life is a lie.