Moonlight Movie Review

 

Moonlight was directed by Barry Jenkins and it won best picture in 2016. It details the life of a young man Chiron growing up in a lower income neighborhood as a gay man. The movie broke Chirone's life into three sections of his life, Little, Chiron, Black. These were all nicknames that Chiron went by at different points in his life. The little section details his young life growing up in Miami. Local drug dealer Juan and his girlfriend teresa pull him in and take care of him as he was constantly bullied by kids at school and his mom was struggling with addiction. In the second section Chiron is in high school and has continued to escape his school and home life by staying with Terese. Chiron's mother and her addiction only grew worse and she starts to beg him for money to fuel her addiction. In this section he also has an intimate moment with his friend Kevin where they get intimate on the beach.  Chiron had enough one day after getting beat up and went to class to smash chair over Terell his bully. He gets taken to juvenile detention and moves to Atlanta. This starts the third section Black. Chiron becomes a man he never was, in Atlanta he build himself from the ground up and he said he "built himself hard". He did this and he was successful in it but he wasn't himself. His mom was in a drug rehab center and regularly called to catch up and try to get him to stop trapping. Kevin called out of the blue one day and tells Chiron they need to catch up. Chiron takes the chance and goes to see him. They re connect and Chiron was quiet as usual but the two end up talking well. Chiron expresses his feeling towards Kevin and them movie ends with them embracing.

My favorite part about this film was Chiron's quiet nature. He was always a man of little words but he also always said what he meant. This was actually the case for many of the characters in the film and it was great. The little talking allowed for long blank stares and quiet rooms build the dramatic tension.

I also loved a lot of the camera work. One specific scene that stands out was when Chiron walks into school after getting beat up and he goes to smash the chair on Kevin. This scene plays out very slow with several shots of Chiron walking down the halls with anger on his face. It was one of the first times in the film we got to see a determined angry Chiron.

This film was great and I would recommend it for anyone. The dramatic buildup and subtle yet sweet ending make it a great watch.