Moonlight (2016, R)

(I'm holding off on News Satire Roundup until tomorrow - I've been out of town this week, and when I'm posting on my phone, it's just easier to post write-ups I already have set to go in drafts.)

I was finally able to see Moonlight, and was very impressed.  I don’t know whether I’d call it my favorite of the Best Picture contenders – a lot of them are so good – but it’s definitely my favorite of the ones that are getting significant buzz in terms of actually winning.  A beautiful, intimate film telling a human story in a meaningful way, and really, it’s hard to get much better than that (premise spoilers.)

Set at three different points in the same life, Moonlight follows Chiron as a boy, a teenager, and a young man, trying to find himself at each stage.  Chiron comes of age in Miami, in a neighborhood where homophobia and ideas of what Black masculinity is supposed to be haunt himself at every turn.  His head is so crowded with the shouts and stings coming from all sides about what he ought to be that he doesn’t have any time to settle in and figure out who he is.  Family, friends, and surrogate parents fade in and out along the way, and the one constant is the question Chiron avoids asking himself.

First of all, all the kudos to the casting department.  Oscar nominees Mahershala Ali and Naomie Harris are both great, particularly Ali as Juan, a neighborhood drug dealer who takes Chiron under his wing out of pure compassion.  It’s a role that could’ve easily felt trite, but between the nuanced writing and Ali’s layered performance, Juan never feels pat or contrived.  Janelle Monáe (Mary from Hidden Figures) also turns in a really nice performance as another kind adult in Chiron’s life.

But the real triumphs here are the triple-casting jobs for Chiron and Kevin, a friend with whom Chiron has a complicated history.  If you’re just going to have a quick flashback in which physical likeness is the most important thing, it’s not too tough to cast younger/older versions of the same character (Pushing Daisies was a master at this, and young Amélie is pitch perfect.)  But if you’re spending significant time with the character at each age, it gets so much harder to make it actually feel like you’re looking at the same person at different points of their life.  Moonlight not only does this with two major characters, it does it for both of them three times.  All three actors for Kevin completely nail his vibe, and Chiron?  Chiron is amazing.  Even as he’s growing and changing, even as he’s actively reinventing himself, you can still recognize him at every stage.  Alex Hibbert, Ashton Sanders, and Trevante Rhodes all do really, really stunning work here.

The plot might seem meandering at first, but it’s actually very intentional, following a thematic throughline over Chiron’s life with touching immediacy.  My heart breaks for him at the violence – physical and emotional – he suffers at the hands of those who won’t contend with what they’ve decided he is, but it breaks even more at the suffering he puts himself through.  A beautiful story that hits its emotional beats with care and deference.

Warnings

Language (including slurs,) thematic elements, light sexual content, drinking/smoking/drug use, and violence.