Moonlight

I watched this In two sittings and was glad of the break. The three ages of the main protagonist all play their part excellently, and each in their own way shows a sadness and sense of being trapped with a secret that is unacceptable to the people around them, as a child, teenager and adult. Not a world that I've ever seen portrayed before which is why I think it is worthy of its accolades. This feels like an insider account of growing up gay in a tough neighbourhood.

Brooding, challenging and sad but well worth the watch.

Moonlight is one of the most beautiful and heart-wrenching films that I have ever seen. Many users are expressing disdain or presumed it to be dull. Yet, to see it as such misses the whole point of the film. Moonlight wasn't intended to overtly wow us or give us knowledge about something we didn't already know. Rather the film allowed us to enter and follow a life that I'm sure many have never considered living. Yes, we know some about poverty, queerness, masculinity, and Blackness individually, but to see the conflict of it all so succinctly woven together allowed the complexity of some folks lives to be seen in an unadulterated way. Moonlight wasn't supposed to give us some grandiose finale or even answers, but simply present a narrative that we often don't see. And that's what makes it so simple, painful, yet outstandingly beautiful.

It's also important to remember that just because you don't understand something, that doesn't mean it is unimportant or invalid. Just because you can't relate to the entire story doesn't mean pieces of it can't teach you something about life. Just because the narrative is one that isn't widely told, doesn't mean it should be disregarded. If you don't understand this film or find it a waste, look deep inside yourself and ask why.

10/10 would recommend.

Words cannot express how I felt after watching Moonlight. It's hard to write a review for a film that touches you so powerfully, so emotionally, because there is nothing else you can say aside from just how deeply you felt it. I felt it, possibly in a way I haven't felt a film in years. So simple in its premise, but incredibly written, directed, and acted. It may very well have one of the best final scenes I have ever seen. Something that also stood out that I didn't particularly expect was the amazing cinematography, so free flowing and so acutely able to capture the characters' feelings. This is a film that is not to be missed, a film to be celebrated through and through.

"Moonlight" may very well be a breath of fresh air to others who are tired to death of our culture's obsession with labeling and categorizing everything in an attempt to understand it. If it can't be easily categorized, it's either frightening and something to be opposed to, or it's abnormal and therefore something to be marginalized.

The main conflict at the heart of "Moonlight," a beautiful movie about a young black man's coming of age in poor and drug-afflicted Miami, is our protagonist's inability to define himself in terms that his environment will allow. He doesn't fit into any of the categories available to him, so he sets out to force himself into one that seems like the best option. His name is Chiron, and the movie shows him to us at three stages of his life, portrayed by three different but wonderful actors. As a little boy, he struggles with loneliness and neglect thanks to a crack-addicted mom (played by Naomie Harris) and takes to the first person who offers to be a father figure to him. In a Dickensian twist, this person happens to be a drug dealer who nevertheless offers him sympathy and understanding not to be found anywhere else. The middle section depicts Chiron as a young man navigating his emerging homosexuality and the high school bullying that goes along with it. In the film's final and most breathtaking sequence, we follow Chiron as a man in his twenties to a reunion with a high school friend who gave him his first gay experience and whom he's never been able to completely move on from. This entire sequence is directed, written, and acted with utmost delicacy.

I can't think of a movie in recent memory that puts loneliness and anguish on screen more effectively than "Moonlight." It's a movie that asks us to see life from the perspective of a very specific individual but then draws universal conclusions from it that makes the superficial differences between him and the viewer (I'm not black, I'm not gay, I didn't grow up in a poor urban environment) melt away until you feel deep compassion and sympathy for a fellow human being who is doing what we all are -- navigating the complexities of living on this world and making the best of it we can.

Grade: A

A sensitive, probing drama. Exploring America through race and sexuality. Beautifully acted, written, directed. To see black Americans portrayed with such complexity is so rare in mainstream American film. And then, on top of this, a sympathetic and positive portrait of gay men. I have a cringe meter which monitors how we, gays, are treated. Goes off constantly in most films. Not Moonlight, not a single cringe meter gong. Wonderful film.