I kind of don't know where to start with this film, which just brims with emotional complexity from its structural simplicity. Evoking the neo-realism of 1960s Italian cinema for a decidedly postmodern audience, there really is no other film like Moonlight. This film has had praise dumped on it since its premiere, and I'll only be adding to it. I've only seen it once, but I can't think of a single flaw.
To get the surface level elements out of the way, the film is stunning from a technical standpoint. Cinematographer James Laxton shoots much of the movie with a very shallow depth of field, at times with only a character's face being in focus, creating a feeling of intense intimacy. Editors Joi McMillon and Nat Sanders string together Chiron's story in a way that lets the film move breezily and quietly, and the result is nothing short of mesmerizing. The way the images and scenes effortlessly ebb and flow together make the experience of watching Moonlight a captivating and engaging one to say the least. On top of that, every performance - and I mean every performance - in the film is absolutely terrific, including a number of child and teen performances, which is itself a major accomplishment. Ali, Harris, Rhodes, Holland, Monae, and Sanders are the standout performances, though it really is impossible to single any one actor out, as they all breathe incredible life into complex, impeccably wrought characters.
And the characters and their interactions with each other, and specifically their interactions with Chiron, is the thread that binds the film's story together. One of the essential aspects of great screenwriting is avoiding cliche. Moonlight not only avoids the cliches and stereotypes you might expect to see in an Oscar-campaigning indie film about a gay black man living among gangsters and drug slingers; it ventures inside each of them and actively dismantles them. It not only asks you to leave behind your assumptions and preconceptions of the experiences of black people, LGBT people, drug dealers, drug addicts, men, boys, single mothers, etc.; it confronts those preconceptions and shatters them, revealing the complex humanity in each of these archetypes too rarely offered honest portrayal in American cinema.
Through its unconventional all-violin score to its striking and intimate camerawork to its breathlessly personal and compassionate screenplay, Moonlight tells a story that strips away its characters' superficial identity signifiers and instead presents us human beings whose experiences have shaped them over generations. Chiron encounters many of the same people at the three different points in his life shown in the film, and with each there is growth, conflict, and forgiveness. Culminating in his final words of confession to a longtime childhood friend, we learn through Chiron's experiences that no matter the societal labels, our most important commonality as human beings is that we strive for connection and understanding amid feelings of isolation and pressure to live up to the expectations of either society or those around us, whether relating to preconceived notions of masculinity, sexuality, or more simply what makes someone a good person, or what it means to love someone, to forgive someone.
In a way, Moonlight is everything we go to the movies for - to understand each other, to feel each other's experiences, to ache with one another, to try to find solace in the fact that we are not alone in feeling pain, loneliness, or the pressure of creating a life for ourselves. Moonlight strips down its characters' stereotypical archetypes to reveal their humanity, urgently challenging us to see through color, sexuality, social status, physical appearance, or walk of life, accept those differences, and really, truly feel for one another and connect with one another for the good of all of us. And it does so in a way that is unique, original, captivating, uplifting, poignant, and almost spiritual.
Moonlight is a soulful, brilliant, and I would say essential film. In a time where empathy and recognition of common humanity is often blockaded by matters of identity, Moonlight is a refreshing take on that theme from an uncommon voice. But don't think that simple politics explain why this film is so great - Moonlight's tale of the astonishing power and necessity of human connection and the eternal struggle to be accepted and understood is a timeless one. Roger Ebert once said that movies are "a machine that generates empathy". Moonlight is the purest incarnation of that machine I've seen in a long, long time.
Grade: A+
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