An actor says her goal as a performer is to tell the truth. A little later, she describes how to shoot a sex scene, then admits she cannot tell the difference between simulation and pleasure. The line between truth and the facsimile of it, which can be paper thin or as wide as a canyon, is the central theme of May December, the new film by Todd Haynes. Best known for lush melodramas such as Far from Heaven, Haynes’ latest turns away from aching poignance for more cerebral goals. Many scenes unfold with multiple levels of meaning, like a puzzle whose solution is just out of reach; fortunately, the carefully controlled lead performances stop the material from being too much of an intellectual exercise.

The premise is a feature-length exploration of Werner Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle. Natalie Portman plays Elizabeth, a famous actor who, in preparation for a role, visits Savannah, Georgia, to observe Gracie (Julianne Moore) and her family. In the early 1990s, when she was 36, Gracie became a tabloid sensation after she seduced a 13-year-old Joe and had his baby. Gracie is still married to Joe (Charles Melton), who is now the same age as Gracie when he was first seduced, and with whom he had two other children. Elizabeth interviews everyone, while also taking part in family barbecues and shopping trips, and her presence creates significant tension. Before long, Joe finds himself wondering which version of the past is real, and which is a fabrication.

Haynes, along with screenwriter Samy Burch, take their time to develop these thorny relationships. At first, we are just as curious and unnerved by Joe and Gracie, who behave just like any other couple, except their relationship was founded on abuse and criminal conduct. There are little flourishes, sometimes only a single line or a reaction, to suggest something is wrong with this version of domestic bliss. The truth becomes more elusive the further Elizabeth burrows into Gracie’s past, even as she uncovers secrets not known to the public. The lurid tabloid scandals of the 1990s are a clear inspiration to Burch—you will think about Mary Kay Letourneau and Amy Fisher during this film—although Burch and Haynes want to rehash more than salacious headlines. May December is also a critique of our true crime obsession and the podcast-focused idea that an investigation must have a satisfying conclusion.

Intriguing formal techniques undercut and deepen our handling of what really happened. Unlike Haynes’ aforementioned works, imbued with the deep colors of a Douglas Sirk film, Haynes and cinematographer Christopher Blauvelt prefer a hazy, almost bland palette of light that recalls 1990s pay-per-view (the pastels decorating Gracie’s home and defining her family’s fashion choices only deepen that connection). In fact, parts of May December seem to take place outside of time: The characters have smartphones they hardly use, and Joe has an odd obsession with Bob Vila reruns. Still, Haynes has a more adept sense of camera placement than erotic thrillers from the era he recalls. His shots can be deeply complex, like a scene where Elizabeth and Gracie sit in front of multiple mirrors, lost among the reflections. Self-regard and distortion are recurring themes in the film, ideas that can be illustrated by remembering a mirror can never tell the exact truth.

Portman and Moore’s performances are strange and absorbing in equal measure. Moore, who worked with Haynes in Safe and Far from Heaven, dials back her inherent sympathy to play Gracie as a blandly amiable woman who nurses her insecurities and then projects them onto others. She is pathologically manipulative, something Elizabeth recognizes almost immediately, but does nothing to stop. Why would she? Elizabeth is there for research, not friendship, something Portman embellishes in later scenes where, while talking to Joe and the others, she starts working on her Gracie impression. Developments like this are a constant challenge to our sympathies, a delicious kind of psychological thriller where, through implication and half-truths, there is a subterranean battle for who controls the narrative. Melton’s deceptive performance—oblivious, tortured, a little dim—is key to the cold war between Elizabeth and Gracie. Whoever controls his feelings is the winner.

In a film that dares you to question your judgment, May December’s biggest provocation is its music. The score by Marcelo Zarvos is needling, a kind of running joke because it sounds like the theme songs to Unsolved Mysteries and Dateline. These TV series offered simple, easy-to-digest summaries of true crime, but here the music is ironic, suggesting a kind of catharsis or solution that never arrives. Some could find that ambiguity frustrating, although our ephemeral sense of the truth is precisely the point. By the time Gracie and Elizabeth relitigate and recreate the past, respectively, Haynes and his collaborators show us that all versions of ourselves—whether it’s in a marriage, in our minds, or on the screen—must be an agreed upon lie.

May December opens in area theaters on Nov. 17, and will be available to stream on Netflix starting Dec. 1.