Moonlight

So many people who review movies, both at an amateur level like this and professionally, talk about originality, especially in this era of franchise IP's that churn out borderline identical clones of itself like the conveyor belt in that I Love Lucy episode in the chocolate factory. But just about every story has been done. Perspectives and subtle tweaks are all that's left, and those are in short supply. Moonlight is, for the most part, not immune to this. Its story, of a young black man's life living in the ghetto, drugs and crime a constant threat to him finding himself and a way of life he can be happy about, is something we've seen done time and again. Boyz N The Hood and Menace II Society are but two examples of the genre. What sets Moonlight apart are the tweaks to the formula. Moonlight is divided into three chapters, presenting the main character at three stages in his life -- a young boy, a teenager, and a young man. Each chapter uses one of the names he goes by to represent different aspects of the character; chapter one is "Little" (his nickname as a boy), chapter two "Chiron" (his name), and chapter three "Black" (a nickname given to him by a friend). This is one of the aspects of Moonlight I loved the most; seeing Chiron's life play out over the course of years, not days or weeks. It allows the movie to breathe, showing the viewer both the short- and long-term ramifications of individual moments. We see Chiron suffer from bullying because of his size and quiet nature; how living with a single mom addicted to crack scars and shapes him, how he longs to fit in but doesn't feel like he can. And we see all this over the course of his life, tracing the impact of one moment on the next. Another aspect of Moonlight's structure is that this is, explicitly and without reservation, Chiron's story. Movies like Boyz N The Hood do a good job exploring life in the hood, but it's usually from a larger point of view; multiple characters, intertwining lives, the hood being a character in and of itself. We see the drug deals and the drive-bys. We see the heavy-handed responses by the police who think all black men are guilty of something. We see the toll taken on the neighborhood itself. Moonlight doesn't do that. This isn't the hood's story; this isn't about murder and gang activity. There isn't a single shooting in the movie, no cops whatsoever, and no gangs. Moonlight is about the quiet between those explosive moments, the quiet moments in the day to day life of the people who live there. It uses that as a backdrop not to explore gang violence or police brutality, but to explore masculinity and identity, both overall and within the African-American community. And it does so remarkably well; Chiron's struggles to know who he is, and then to accept it, come off as universal, but also have deep resonance for the AA community. The performances of the three actors to portray Chiron are key to this -- Alex Hibbert as the boy, Ashton Sanders as the teen, and Trevante Rhodes as the adult -- but there isn't a bad performance in the movie. So why am I only giving this four stars, you ask? Well, that's a good question, and the answer is ... I don't know. I can't point to any single aspect of this movie that's bad per se, or even lacking (okay, the abrupt ending was a let-down). I love every aspect of this movie ... but I don't love the movie, if that makes sense. I respect it, I appreciate it, I recognize that it is a deeply personal and important and profound movie, but I never felt emotionally engaged. It felt more like an examination of the themes than an exploration of them, but I also feel like that may be a me thing. I can't say the movie failed to communicate itself in any way. I can't put my finger on the disconnect. Ultimately, I would recommend Moonlight, despite my inability to feel about it as deeply as I want to. I don't think it's a failing of the movie. The direction and acting are excellent, and the story and its themes are vitally important. Perhaps you'll love it where I only liked and appreciated it. But it is definitely a movie worth watching, and a movie worth the awards and recognition it received.