Moonlight Review
It took me almost three months but I finally was able to see one of the bigger Oscar contenders of the year, Barry Jenkins’ Moonlight. I’ll cut straight to the chase: this is a movie I admire more than I love. As a single, straight white guy in the Midwest, the movie’s subject matter wasn’t exactly my go-to and I didn’t direct relate to the main character, but it was his plight to survive under harsh circumstances and his quest for independence and sexual freedom that I rooted for.
The story follows Chiron, an African-American boy growing up in Miami with his addict mother. One day he is found by a sympathetic drug dealer, Juan, in a crack-house as he is being chased by some school kids. Juan helps Chrion both in life skills and by letting his know it’s okay to have the homosexual feelings he is beginning to have. However, Paula, Chiron’s mother, disapproves of Juan’s involvement and chastises Chiron for hanging around the drug dealer. We jump forward in time by a few years as Chiron struggles in high school with bullies and continuing to figure out his sexual identity. His lifelong friend, Kevin and he become closer, but both Paula’s behavior and a sudden turn of events with Kevin take Chrion down a path that leads to him becoming a drug dealer in Atlanta. We pick up there with Chiron as an adult, and the final chapter follows a reunion with both Paula and Kevin, where perhaps past sins can be forgiven and Chiron can finally be embracing for being himself in spite of the harsh environment around him.
If we’re counting up the strengths of the movie first, we have to start with the acting. Chrion is played by three different actors, one for each stage of his life, Alex Hibbert, Ashton Sanders, and Trevante Rhodes. All three actors do an excellent job as the character, and each chapter refreshingly has Chrion at the different stages of his life, so each actor gets their own spin on who Chiron is. Naomi Harris dominates in her role as Paula. While she’s not the most sympathetic character as a drug-addicted mother, she does a phenomenal job. Also great is Mahershala Ali as Juan and Janelle Monae as his girlfriend Teresa. Jenkins, who’s only directed one other film before this one, knows how to get great performances out of his actors, and technically speaking he knows what he’s doing as well. The cinematography is wonderful, it’s well-edited, and the musical score by Nicholas Brittell is peppered-in in the perfect moments. Plus the movie’s almost two hours, but it flies by. Perhaps the thing I loved best about the movie was that it didn’t have to center on these characters in these locations with these traits. This story could happen anywhere at any time and under many, many, many different circumstances. Say, the 18th century in New York with rich white women or in Native American times or even overseas in Nazi-occupied France in the 1940’s. The timelessness of this story and again the ability to cheer on your main character as he or she tries to get what they want overcomes for me any uncomfortable moments or un-relateable moments.
The complaints I have are actually pretty few and far between. For one, I found the middle story with Chiron as a high schooler as the best of the three acts, and the first and third didn’t hold my interests as well. Sure, we have excellent performances all the way and there are a few more emotional moments in the second and third chapters than the first, but for what that middle story did, the third act almost comes off as a letdown. And that’s just me, I know a lot of people think the third act is the best. One other thing I thought could have been improved was the pacing. This kind of links to the last comment, and sure that first hour flies by, but for me that third act felt a bit longer than it actually lasted.
Yes, there isn’t too much to complain about, and again I’ll stress that I’m not exactly the target audience for the film, but even though I am not in Chiron’s shoes, I was able to relate with him to a point. Being in a spot you don’t want to be in with people who aren’t what they should be and not being able to express yourself is something that just about everybody can relate to. These moments and the strong acting raise above those problems I mentioned and at the end of the day, this is definitely in the conversation of one of the top ten films of the year. It’s not quite in my list, but still an impressive job by relative newcomer Barry Jenkins, whose future looks as bright as the title of the film.
My rating: 9/10.
