May December is uncomfortable viewing – rightly so

It would be all too easy to get the tone wrong in a film about grooming and child sex abuse, but Todd Haynes’s May December makes for uncomfortable viewing in just the right way.

Gracie Atherton-Yoo is a notorious woman after having groomed and seduced a 13-year-old boy, Joe, when she was 36. Discovered in flagrante delicto in the storeroom of the pet shop where they both worked, she was sent to prison, where she gave birth to a girl.

Fast forward 23 years. She and Joe are married and have three children. Honor is at college, while twins Mary and Charlie are set to graduate from school.

And Gracie’s story, which scandalised the nation, is set to be retold in an independent film, where she will be played by Julliard-educated Elizabeth, who is famous for a light TV role and is looking to push her career further.

Elizabeth is visiting Gracie and the family in preparation for the role, with the latter hoping that this movie will ‘set the record straight’, unlike the tacky tabloidesque TV film that we see in the background of one shot, and all the sensationalistic, gossipy magazine stories that the former has gathered as part of her research

Based on the real-life case of Mary Kay Letourneau, Samy Burch’s screenplay is at once high camp, in the fashion of All About Eve, for instance, but also deeply serious.

By the end, there is no obvious resolution to the story; when is Gracie lying/gaslighting and when not, for instance? How much can we trust her word? What will happen to her and Joe now that all their children are leaving the nest – and he is still only 36?

Yet we see, throughout the film, her microaggressions of bullying and control on all her family – including Joe. There’s a scene where she and Elizabeth are in a shop, as Mary is selecting a dress for her graduation, Gracie ‘compliments’ her daughter for having the ‘bravery’ to select a dress that shows off her upper arms. Result? Mary backs down and selects a different dress.

Late on, we learn that Gracie had been abused by her elder brothers – a classic path to becoming an abuser oneself and it is important that the film acknowledges this. Yet she denies it to Elizabeth – suggesting she is gaslighting her own son from her first marriage who gave Elizabeth this information in the first place.

Who – and what – do you believe? It’s a superb look at gaslighting and at personality disorder, and at the effects of abuse on all those around whom it happens.

Julienne Moore is superb as Gracie; brittle and vulnerable and threatening all at the same time.

Natalie Portman is equally good as Elizabeth. The theme here of performing roles – not least, our socially expected ones – are important throughout the film.

Charles Melton, as Joe, has already won a number of awards and it is no surprise why – he manages a poignant subtlety that acts as a stark and important contrast to the campness mentioned earlier. This is a painful performance for him.

And the ending should harrow, in terms of what it suggests – well, what you as the viewer decide to read into it.

It is a really very fine film.

Dealing with a case of SAD. Or is it EOF?

It could be the all-pervading gloom and a dose of SAD; it could be a hangover from the festive period. It might be the knowledge that the clock is now ticking on the final year of my forties.

But one way or the other, I have not been myself of late. And the nearest description I can offer is that it has felt like a case of Early Onset Frumpiness.

Is this what women mean when they talk of suddenly feeling invisible as they reach A Certain Age?

At home, I slob around in casual gear – and feel perfectly happy doing so. But elsewhere, I have been feeling distinctly dowdy and dumpy.

After allowing this mood to dominate me for a week or so, I realised that there were things that I could do. Mostly, it was about finding ways of feeling that I was taking back control.

Step one seemed obvious. Ever since getting less than a pound back from a tenner for a single packet of fags at WS Smith at Glasgow Airport in November, my smoking days had been numbered.

I hadn’t set a time frame – it was too frenetic a period to be adding in something like that – and then stocked up in France on the basis that, once the Gauloise were finished, I would be too, as a smoker.

In the event, it took a packet more, but on Monday, I pressed a patch onto my arm and threw away the remaining ciggies.

It is nearly the end of day five now and we are progressing well. And I haven’t had increased munchies either (which will calm my father, who is more worried that I will turn into a veritable beach ball of elephantine proportions than improve my bank balance and my cardiovascular health).

Step two – book a hair appointment. And that was late this afternoon – fresh colour to cover the grey and a short, sharp cut to make me feel modern again.

I never have been able to do the long hair that, in the UK, seems to be de rigeur for every woman who doesn’t want to be assumed to be a raving bull dyke.

Why this obsession with long hair, I don’t know: why this belief that the only 'properly' feminine hair is long hair? There seems to be far greater variety of length in France than here. Personally, my hair has always been far too fine – and a halfway house between curly and straight – to do much with it if I do let it grow.

Yet more than one hairdresser down the years has baulked at cutting it short. Not Ian, though, who always does a very nice job. And the whole experience – not just the wonderful head massage – is deeply relaxing.

Step three – think about the wardrobe. Not quite as easy. I am, in many ways, caught between the devil and the deep blue sea in two ways at present.

On the one hand, I’m a traditionalist in matters sartorial – my mother had me looking like a junior Miss Marple in my teens, so it’s well rooted – but there's a part of me that yearns to be far more bohemian. After all, I’m ‘A Creative’, don’t y’know!

On top of that, the clothes problem isn’t helped at present by being ‘between sizes’ as I very slowly lose weight.

But what could be done easily was remembering to wear some heels in a morning rather than opting for the rather flat boots I’ve been living in. It might sound daft, but even a small heel can put a bit more spring in your step.

And then, in a take-hold-of-the-situation-and-shake-the-cobwebs-out-of-it sort of way, I set about a day of deep cleaning in the flat.

It might not have been good for my hands, but it was certainly good for our abode. And the exertion was a good wrench out of the lethargy that seems to have been hanging around with all that grey cloud.

I had allowed myself to slump into laziness. Other little things had been allowed to slip too – like a decent skin care routine.

The only thing that is clear is that, five days after embarking on this attempt to invigorate myself, I feel a lot better. Now if only the blue skies stay overhead, I can finally step properly into the new(ish) year.

Walking in a winter wonderland

You know you're getting old when you get excited about receiving a teapot as a Christmas present. Now admittedly, it is a Rocha. John Rocha teapot – I'd never really considered the idea of designer teapots – so that diminishes something of the image of an elderly spinster sipping tea, knitting a tea cosy and surrounded by contended cats.

Okay, the cats are part of the scene, but I'm no spinster (despite my mother's insistence on always addressing post to me as 'Miss', rather than 'Ms' or simply leaving out a title at all) and I don't knit. Well, not these days, at any rate.

It is fair to point out that My Favourite Things does include "whiskers on kittens", but it doesn't mention slate grey teapots – although "bright copper kettles" make it, and after all, what's the use of a teapot without a kettle?

It's not that I don't like coffee, but I have been drinking more and more tea in recent months and, when my mother asked what I wanted for presents, just days after my old teapot had broken, it seemed a sensible idea.

The kittens seem to like tea too. On their first morning with us, there was nearly a fight to see who could get their head into my mug to drink what was by then rather cold Lady Grey. It was removed from temptation's way, since I don't suppose that caffeine counts as a good supplement to the diet of baby cats.

The teapot was christened this morning, as we sat in bed and cuddled the latest additions to the household.

I received it yesterday, during a brief visit to my parents, who live just beyond Croydon. It's only around 12 miles as the crow flies, but it takes long enough to get there – and yesterday it seemed to take a veritable epoch to get back.

We have been having snow. Very pretty to look at, but the transport system around the capital in particular struggles to cope with wintery conditions. Mild winters for much of the last decade or so have made this situation even worse.

I caught the bus as usual to London Bridge station, and boarded a train. Just before it was due to leave, we were advised to get off, as it wasn't going where it had been scheduled to. A bit of asking around produced the sole explanation that there was "frost on the rails". On that basis, I hopped back onto the diverted train and got off as near to somewhere I knew as possible – East Croydon – and got a cab the rest of the way.

With the inclement weather, we'd already agreed that I wouldn't stay for an evening meal, but when snow started falling in mid afternoon – and sticking on damp ground – it seemed sensible to leave as early as possible. My father returned from taking a funeral at around 4pm, so we scrabbled through the annual gift-giving and then he went to call a cab for me to go to the station, since the older he gets, the less keen he becomes on driving at night – let alone in such weather. No cabs were available.

I said I'd catch a bus – and told him that he didn't need to walk me to the stop. Wrapped up and having had the common sense to wear my Doc Martens, I waddled carefully down the snowy street to the main road and the bus stop. It was the start of the rush hour, but nobody was rushing anywhere. A mere centimetre of snow – much of it already turned to slush on the road itself – had brought chaos. Traffic was hardly moving and, after a good 20 minutes or more, I had yet to see a single bus on either side of the road.

My geeky iPhone came into its own again, with the app for the rail network informing me that trains were still running (and on time) from nearby Wallington station. There seemed to be only one thing for it. I walked. It usually takes about 10 minutes, but that's in good weather. Hobbling along on impacted slush, worrying about falling and breaking my brand new teapot and trying to relax my muscles, it took around 20.

I had five minutes to spare before the next scheduled train to London Bridge. It arrived on time – and I managed to grab a seat. Then, between West Croydon and Norwood, it stopped. After a few minutes, the driver announced that, due to the weather, there was a train tailback all the way into the city.

Initially, he told us that this would delay us by around 45 minutes to an hour. And then, fortunately, we were diverted to Victoria. After that, it should have been plain sailing as I got a can from the station, and waved jauntily – as I always do on that route – at Thomas Thornycroft's statue of Boudicca in her chariot as we turned onto the Embankment. But we had to take another minor diversion after the road was blocked by a road accident. That proved only a brief hiatus in the final leg of this epic journey.

It's a long time since I've had such a snowy adventure. When we lived in Mossley, the top of the town used to get cut off by snow an average of twice each winter. The first time it happened when I was at school just outside Manchester, the bus only got as far as the top road, before being completely engulfed in drifting snow. There were a few of us returning from schools outside the town and a woman marshalled us to walk the rest of the way, taking us into the pub at the top of the town, where we were partly thawed out with hot blackcurrant drinks. By the time I made it home, for my mother to let me in at the front door, I looked like the abominable snowman – my gabardine mac covered in snow. But the only thing that worried me was the time and whether or not I'd missed Top of the Pops. Nearly, but not quite. I was still in time to see David Soul sing his chart topping Don't Give Up on Us at the end of the programme (which dates it as either January or early February 1977).

After that episode, the school would send us Mossley girls home at the first sniff of the white stuff. On another occasion, when no traffic could get up to a nearby farm, my mother sent me on foot, to buy eggs. I tramped up a hill, relishing the deep, pristine snow – and fell part of the way down on the way back. My mother was concerned – but only about the eggs. Which – fortunately for me – were unscathed.

Anyway, I made it back last night in time to catch the Victoria Wood celebration on BBC2. Which was good – at one point on the stationary train, with a loud Afrikanner telling the entire carriage that Sarf Efriken Rayalways would do it better, I was thinking that I'd miss it all.

Once I got home and changed and sat down with a cup of tea, and having said a proper 'hello' to The Queen B, I had to cuddle Loki and Otto, who continue to love cuddles and fuss.

Boudi has been progressing well – and is now spending much more time in the same room as them, watching as though utterly fascinated. She still hisses a bit if they look too much at her, but seems to have decided that they're not being allowed to take over all her home.

Christmas Day, when there's shiny paper aplenty around, could be a riot.

Plenty of pots and pots of potions

If pots and potions are an obvious outward sign of matters magical, then I can expect to find myself convicted of witchcraft sometime soon. And combined with my love of cats, I'd be a goner!

There I was in the bathroom last night, performing my toilet, when it struck me just how many different liquids and lotions this seems to entail.

There’s the cleanser and the toner. Then the face serum, followed by eye cream and a general face moisturiser.

There’s hand cream and lip salve, and foot balm and a body lotion.

Not forgetting the face cream wash for mornings, the face scrub for a couple of times a week, and the body scrub too.

And cocoa butter for the feet.

And we won’t mention the shaving gel (although I promise it’s not a girly pink one).

It’s madness! But I can’t believe it’s a situation that is unique to me.

In partial mitigation, I should point out that the building I currently work in has a dismal air conditioning system, which is very, very dehydrating. Even remembering to drink enough water each day, my skin gets dry to the point of flakiness if I don’t moisturise regularly.

Of course, in days of yore, perhaps I’d have made the contents of these pots and potions myself. But now we witches, trying to find the spell that keeps us young – or at least holds some of the ravages of time at bay for a while – can fulfil our needs at the shops rather than huffing and puffing over the cauldron.

Personally, I’m only in search of a limited amount of magic. I’ve no desire to attempt to look like a twenty-something; I quite like being middle-aged. But neither do I want to join the blue-rinse brigade and wear twinset and pearls – my mother had me doing the latter when I was still in my teens, and once is quite enough.

We live at a time when, for all the pressures women face, we also have far more choices than our mothers and grandmothers ever had about how we live our lives. Whether I use any potions at all is down to just one person – me. The same with make-up and so many other things.

There are times when I think my life is all a bit Benjamin Button – I started out as the youngest spinster in town and became the oldest teenager around.

At least the pots and potions help me feel that I haven’t yet succumbed to looking, as my mother would intone, “like mutton dressed up as lamb”. And long may it continue.