Moonlight

A sensitive, probing drama. Exploring America through race and sexuality. Beautifully acted, written, directed. To see black Americans portrayed with such complexity is so rare in mainstream American film. And then, on top of this, a sympathetic and positive portrait of gay men. I have a cringe meter which monitors how we, gays, are treated. Goes off constantly in most films. Not Moonlight, not a single cringe meter gong. Wonderful film.

After reading the reviews, and seeing Stuckmanns review on YouTube (a reviewer I nearly always agree with), I not only wanted to really love this movie - I expected to. But alas, no. Certainly it has some really good things about it - the cinematography is beautiful, incredible performances from just about all of the cast, but the story? I mean sure, it is meaningful and I guess important to a degree, but it was just a bit thin on the ground. Young boy, becomes a teenager, then a grown man - and he is gay and has lived a lonely life because of it. Not exactly mind-blowing. And it had one of those really frustrating endings - you know the type, the ones that just end and you are like "Eh? Is that it....? Really...??!!"

But as I said, it does have many plus points, and it is certainly worth watching - just personally after all I had read I was expecting to be blown away, and I certainly wasn't.

I remember the 'good old days' when IMDb review forums had a more balanced array of reviews, instead of everyone rating something 1 or 10, and then adding politics. So I'll add some of that to the mix. This was my experience: I watched it post-Oscar. My reaction: "Moonlight" is that type of movie that is best appreciated as a "hey, that was an interesting indie; it's well acted and I wonder what the director will do next", instead of an Oscar winner for best movie and best screenplay. It's the type of film that I would have added to my list after seeing it show up somewhere in the Independent Spirit Awards, like "L.I.E.", "Our Lady of the Assassins", "Paranoid Park", etc. It's stylish, it captures a slice of life, and it is mostly engaging. Unfortunately, like others point out, it feels under-done, like each act was cut short a little, and in particular the last act is underwhelming, and too much like a first-time screenwriter's autobiographical play. It's Oscar-winning screenplay is ironically quite short on story-telling, dialogue (yes, sometimes appropriately intentionally, other times just not very creative), and scenes that will engage enough.

The cinematography is interesting, with a video-game like POV, floating over the lead character's shoulders from behind, inviting you into the action. There's some nice shots, good use of music (although sometimes cut a bit abruptly, and I would have liked to have heard more of the beautiful score), and a lot of use of the senses. Feel the ice, feel the sand, taste the food, enjoy the nightlight; it all feels relaxing, enhancing the ability to escape a grim reality into something more beautiful. Other sounds are blocked out or intentionally out of sync. I liked that Barry Jenkins was able to capture that.

The first act has an excellent scene with a showdown between a surrogate father and an absent mother, which is also a debate about the drug dealer/drug user relationship. Mahershala Ali and Naomie Harris are great in these respective roles. There's discussion of identity, acceptance, masculinity, and bullying. The second act builds on a climax in which the characters stands up for himself, literally and figuratively, and then takes on a sociopathic bully, who is one of this year's scariest villains. The third act tries to balance a charming but thin love story, while exploring identity, and the influence of our role models and life circumstances on ourselves.

It sounds better than what it is, unfortunately. The trailer is great. But, again, the screenplay is underdeveloped. The third act is a different film, or perhaps needed to be shorter and add an additional act between that and the second one, to further flesh out the story.

"Moonlight" may very well be a breath of fresh air to others who are tired to death of our culture's obsession with labeling and categorizing everything in an attempt to understand it. If it can't be easily categorized, it's either frightening and something to be opposed to, or it's abnormal and therefore something to be marginalized.

The main conflict at the heart of "Moonlight," a beautiful movie about a young black man's coming of age in poor and drug-afflicted Miami, is our protagonist's inability to define himself in terms that his environment will allow. He doesn't fit into any of the categories available to him, so he sets out to force himself into one that seems like the best option. His name is Chiron, and the movie shows him to us at three stages of his life, portrayed by three different but wonderful actors. As a little boy, he struggles with loneliness and neglect thanks to a crack-addicted mom (played by Naomie Harris) and takes to the first person who offers to be a father figure to him. In a Dickensian twist, this person happens to be a drug dealer who nevertheless offers him sympathy and understanding not to be found anywhere else. The middle section depicts Chiron as a young man navigating his emerging homosexuality and the high school bullying that goes along with it. In the film's final and most breathtaking sequence, we follow Chiron as a man in his twenties to a reunion with a high school friend who gave him his first gay experience and whom he's never been able to completely move on from. This entire sequence is directed, written, and acted with utmost delicacy.

I can't think of a movie in recent memory that puts loneliness and anguish on screen more effectively than "Moonlight." It's a movie that asks us to see life from the perspective of a very specific individual but then draws universal conclusions from it that makes the superficial differences between him and the viewer (I'm not black, I'm not gay, I didn't grow up in a poor urban environment) melt away until you feel deep compassion and sympathy for a fellow human being who is doing what we all are -- navigating the complexities of living on this world and making the best of it we can.

Grade: A

Moonlight is one of the most beautiful and heart-wrenching films that I have ever seen. Many users are expressing disdain or presumed it to be dull. Yet, to see it as such misses the whole point of the film. Moonlight wasn't intended to overtly wow us or give us knowledge about something we didn't already know. Rather the film allowed us to enter and follow a life that I'm sure many have never considered living. Yes, we know some about poverty, queerness, masculinity, and Blackness individually, but to see the conflict of it all so succinctly woven together allowed the complexity of some folks lives to be seen in an unadulterated way. Moonlight wasn't supposed to give us some grandiose finale or even answers, but simply present a narrative that we often don't see. And that's what makes it so simple, painful, yet outstandingly beautiful.

It's also important to remember that just because you don't understand something, that doesn't mean it is unimportant or invalid. Just because you can't relate to the entire story doesn't mean pieces of it can't teach you something about life. Just because the narrative is one that isn't widely told, doesn't mean it should be disregarded. If you don't understand this film or find it a waste, look deep inside yourself and ask why.

10/10 would recommend.