Movie Review: "Moonlight"

"Moonlight": A-.  It is rare to view a film so clearly divided into three acts without coming away with a firm opinion of which section was the strongest and which was the weakest.  One of the admirable qualities of Moonlight, a film obviously structured in that triptych style, is that it defies the odds by being superb at all three stages.

The story takes place in Liberty City, a drug riddled impoverished section of Miami where dealers conduct their business in broad daylight with impunity.  The king of cocaine there is Juan (Mahershala Ali), a cool cat who drives around in a big ol' sedan with a crown mounted on the dashboard.  Unexpectedly, Juan rescues quivering nine year old Chiron (Alex Hibbert) from a hideout in which the youngster was taking shelter from older kids who were going to beat him up.  Juan brings him to his own house which he shares with Teresa (Janelle Monae).  They show Chiron the kindness that has been missing from his life.  Chiron barely speaks, but is relieved to be able to spend the night there.

Chiron's mother is Paula (Naomi Harris), a crack addict too high to be concerned about where her son has been all night.  She offers no thanks to Juan for taking care of Chiron, instead slamming the door in Juan's face.  Chiron's father is not in the picture, but that gap is filled by Juan taking the boy under his wing, doing activities and having conversations together like father-son.  Parts of those conversations reveal Chiron's uncertainty over his sexual identity.  It's an uncertainty exacerbated by the teasing and taunting of his schoolmates.  Juan and Teresa attempt to assuage his anxiety.  Thus we have a kind-hearted drug dealer, a unique type of character in cinema history.

An extra layer of complexity and drama is added when Juan spots Paula smoking crack in a car with one of his customers.  For a moment Juan seems to look at himself as Chiron's surrogate father, possibly forgetting he, himself, is largely responsible for putting narcotics on the Liberty City streets.  Juan confronts Paula in a futile attempt to shame her into putting her motherhood responsibility first.  The irony of that argument is thick.  Paula is not embarrassed in the least.

 

The second act finds Chiron's friend Kevin (Jharrel Jerome) supplanting the late Juan as the central person in Chiron's life.  They are both teenagers and have known each other for years.  Chiron (Ashton Sanders) is now a tall lanky teenager, still painfully shy and victimized by his mother's worsening addiction.  One night a serious conversation between the two boys turns into a brief romantic tryst.

 

Although Chiron keeps his feelings to himself, his classmates have caught on that there is something a little "off" about his mannerisms.  Chiron is tormented by a punk group led by Terrel (Patrick Decile).  Trouble begins in the school cafeteria when Terrel challenges Chiron to a fight outside.  A heartbreaking scene occurs when Kevin is pressured by Terrel to slug the defenseless Chiron, who is then kicked and pummeled by the others as he lie prone.  The second act closes with a horrible finish.

 

To comment much about the third act would violate my self-imposed rule to keep to a movie's first half action in my posts.  In an attempt to bend but not break that rule, I will simply write that the movie's final chapter finds Chiron (Trevante Rhodes) as an independent adult with a remade body.  There are obvious clues -- his removable shiny silver braces, his bling, the BLACK personalized license plate, and Juan's old crown on his dash -- that he has followed in the footsteps of his childhood savior, Juan.  Before the movie ends Chiron reunites with key people from his Liberty City childhood.

 

There are a number of elements which make this a superior film, starting with the actors who play Chiron.  Rhodes is a former athlete who could pass for a bouncer but who, instead, has a meekness and calmness about him.  Ali, on the screen only for the first act, has a presence which he uses both in the scenes where Juan is jive talkin' with customers or offering advice to little Chiron.  Ali, who played the Marine boyfriend of Taraji P. Henson in Hidden Figures (reviewed here January 29; B+) won the Best Supporting Actor Academy Award for Moonlight, as predicted by most of the Hollywood media.  Equally deserving was Harris, who took home the Best Supporting Actress Oscar.  The scene where she pleads with her teenage son for money so she can buy a fix displays her exceptional talent.  The "cherry on top" was the Best Picture Oscar which Moonlight won after a famously historic snafu in which Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway erroneously announced La La Land (reviewed here January 23; A) as the Best Picture winner at the awards ceremony.

 

It would be a shame if people only remember Moonlight as the movie which was the Best Picture recipient after a Pricewaterhouse Cooper accountant handed Bonnie and Clyde the wrong envelope.  Director Barry Jenkins assembled a great cast for the rendering of this unforgettable story based on an unpublished play by Tarell Alvin McCraney.  What I most appreciated about the script was that we hear the actual dialogue comprising key moments in the film, such as the conversations during Chiron's third act reunions.  Unlike Manchester By The Sea (reviewed here last December 8; B), Moonlight does not fall prey to the Anatomy Of A Murder Syndrome.

 

Spring just arrived last week, but I am sure Moonlight will end up being one of the best films I will have seen during the current twelve month period.