Moonlight Review

Sometimes in an effort to sum up a film you can completely strip away everything that makes it so powerful. When describing Barry Jenkins' Moonlight one might say that its a film about the troubles of a poor black man with a crack addicted mother coming to terms with his own sexuality. However, with the characters the film features, Moonlight is so much more than that.

The film follows the life of Chiron, a young man growing up in Liberty City, Miami. The first chapter follows his life as young boy, and the relationship he has with his drug addicted mother (Naomi Harris) and the relationship he forms with his mothers drug dealer (Mahershala Ali). The second chapter sees Chiron as a teenager, thrown into hormonal adolescence his sexuality and his feelings come more to the fore. The final chapter is Chiron as a grown man, things have changed drastically for him yet much also remains the same.

Chiron is played by 3 different actors and its a testament to their performances that you never once feel like they aren't the same person. All three have a strong screen presence and a sensitivity that always makes Chiron's character immensely endearing. Out of the 3, Trevante Rhodes is the most impressive, in the final chapter Chiron has bulked up to an intimidating size, his muscular physique fills the frame, what's so amazing about Rhodes performance is how he manages to maintain the sensitivity established in the first two chapters, despite his physicality being completely different. The supporting cast is also incredibly strong, Naomi Harris does so much in the scenes she's given, she is an incredibly damaged woman and it would be so easy to hate her, yet there's something that Harris gives the character that by the end there is a swell of sympathy for her. Mahershala Ali took home best supporting actor for his role as Juan, and there can be no argument that he didn't deserve it. He completely undercuts every stereotype and preconception we think we know about drug dealers in poor black neighbourhoods. He offers Chiron a father figure when he doesn't have one, gives him guidance and teaches him to be who he wants to be, and yet there's always this dichotomy that Juan is also responsible in some part for the poor parenting he's receiving elsewhere.

Barry Jenkins is surely going to be a major player going forward, his style is the perfect compliment to his actors performances. Its subtle and unimposing yet also wonderfully expressive, similar somewhat to Steve McQueen, Jenkins is seemingly able to blend both formalism and realism into a perfect cocktail. Moonlight offers so much about the notion of identity and how we define ourselves, characters are complex, they are more than whatever labels can be attributed to them, at the end of it all, Jenkins hasn't just created characters, he's created fully formed people.

This may feel to some like nothing actually happens, and plot wise it is incredibly laid back. But what its depicting is real drama, complex emotions and day to day issues. It's a film that feels personal to Jenkins and writer of the original play Tarell Alvin McCraney, more importantly than anything is that it feels honest. It's confused winning of the best picture Oscar will take most of the headlines for this film, but the headline should really be that for the first time in a while a truly fantastic film made on a small budget has won the biggest honour in Hollywood.

(5 Stars)