Moonlight

While La La Land was and arguably still is beloved by all who have seen it for its ties to classical musical as well as its update to that style of genre, Moonlight ironically lost a lot of good will after it was announced that it won Best Picture at the 2017 Academy Awards. While both were critically acclaimed movies that were front runners for the award, Moonlight’s victory was seen as a mistake or even a ploy by the academy to pander after they ”accidentally” announced La La Land as the victor before retracting the statement to give it to Moonlight, meaning that a lot of people felt that it shouldn’t have won the award. This caused a serious backlash and has left the movie with a rotten stain on its legacy, with people downright rejecting even watching the movie because they feel it won the award based on its ‘’political leaning and conforming to academy checkmarks’’. With all that said though, how much of that hate is deserved? In Liberty City, Miami during the height of the crack epidemic, the movie focuses on Chiron (played by Trevante Rhodes), a man who struggled through his childhood and teenage years due to suffering extreme bullying for being gay and experiencing frequent grief from his drug-addicted mother Paula (played by Naomie Harris). Though he found comfort in people like his drug-dealer father figure Juan (played by Mahershala Ali) and the boy he has a crush on, Kevin (played by André Holland), Chiron lacks purpose and direction as he wonders through life never truly feeling complete and this stays with him through each important stage of his development, leading up to the point in his adulthood where he has to confront his past and make peace with his future. Based on the unpublished semi-autobiographical play, In Moonlight Black Boys Look Blue, by Tarell Alvin McCraney, Moonlight goes for spectacle over substance in a movie that provides pretty visuals and portrayals of harsh real problems that are exhibited on people of color or of different sexual orientation but doesn’t offer much in terms of deep story or character.

Upon realizing that this movie is based around not only a retelling of a real person’s life, but also is derived from a play, explains a lot about the movie’s structure. The triple split presentation of the main character’s life as well as the pacing and layout of each scene feels like it’s very theatre-deep in nature. This transition between the art-form shows as the movie’s flow and narrative layout isn’t as clean or as effective as it needs to be now that its operating as a film.  It doesn’t help that for a movie with a ‘’coming-of-age’’ style plot, it doesn’t manage to capture anything connectable on a wider scale, instead relying on select experiences that while important to address (like breaking traditional stereotypes of African Americans in terms of masculinity and vulnerability), but relatable stories work when the audience can identify with these struggles, and not only are these struggles not entirely universal, but they aren’t even tackled in an interesting or complex manner. The movie’s filmography and presentation exude this almost pretentious ambiance that really overshadows the actual purpose behind what the movie’s message is supposed to be about; taking time away which could be spent on actually telling the story and instead focusing on visual metaphors that are probably important and meaningful, but the movie doesn’t give enough to make its audience care to figure out the actual reasoning behind it. Despite this, the movie clearly has passion behind what its telling; it’s definitely coming from a personal tale that is trying to reach people on an emotional level rather than on a logical one. These pieces about coming out and finding your place after struggling through a rocky childhood will undoubtedly connect with some people and for that, the movie feels like it’s doing something correct in that regard. Also, the directing by Barry Jenkins is pretty decent, as despite only being his second directorial job, his past experience with helming a dramatic romance with the 2008 film, Medicine for Melancholy, no doubt helping with bringing a dramatic as well as the softer romantic element to this story as well. While the literal ‘’three act’’ structure makes the movie feel segmented, they do have good parts within each, the pacing (while different) didn’t drag the movie out too long, and although these story beats aren’t tackled as much as they could be, they are still interesting pieces that are at least being talked about, which is something not a lot of movies of this type do and its appreciated because of that.

One of the key factors in making a coming-of-age story work is being able to identify with the characters of focus and relating with their struggles. The separate time frames the movie follows doesn’t only make it incredibly hard to keep adjusting to the lead character as it always feels like three different people, but the biggest issue overall is the main character himself. Chiron is just not an interesting character to watch; he has zero personality, and the movie doesn’t give any great moments for any of the actors portraying any of his ages to really pull out any powerful or stand-outish. While Alex R. Hibbert, Ashton Sanders and Trevante Rhodes aren’t downright bad in their portrayals, their blank expressions, limited dialogue and zero characterization leaves very little room for any of them to form an identity with this role. He feels like a mold for this movie to insert in a bunch of messages and interpretations as a whole, like he personifies the movie’s themes and morals rather than existing as a person with true desires and wants. A character should shape the message and not the other way round, because that leaves no room for any sense of personality or intrigue, only what the people in charge of the movie dictate to the audience. Most of the other’s characters would act as much better leads to follow because they are at least given set-up and elements of personality to work with (with examples like the mother, Juan and Kevin being prime contenders). Also, everybody’s acting is mostly pretty good from the main cast. While Mahershala Ali is very underused, he still presents himself with a good enough presence that makes you want to see more of him which is a pretty solid showcase of his talent, and people like Naomie Harris and even Janelle Monáe do good in their small parts as well, equally demonstrating the talent they have through minimal screen time.

For a movie that’s trying to capture the spirit and energy of the black community during a time of unrest and consequences like the US in the 1980s and 90s, the movie does manage to create an environment that feels down-to-earth and honestly pretty believable. While nowhere near as fleshed out and lively as it could have been, the way the characters interact and work off each other does feel authentic to the time period and to the community they are presenting, and that does help in creating a liveable environment that welcomes this type of story, but the movie isn’t without some creative angles and visuals to make things a bit more interesting. While sometimes the camerawork by cinematographer James Laxton can range from too purposeful in moments (certain spin-around shots don’t need to go on for so long) and pretty plain and general, there are several shots that get the correct emotions across and certain usage of saturated reds, greens and especially blues adds a nice color palette to the movie that makes it look dream-like, but also gritty and harshly lit. While the idea of the visual metaphors can be a little self-indulging sometimes in its delivery, it isn’t a bad idea as getting across such complex emotions running through the head of someone as a child, teenager and adult could be do well through a visually distinct manner, but they aren’t abstract enough to be otherworldly, but also not simplistic enough to feel realistic, it’s a decent try but it isn’t properly utilized. The music by Nicholas Britell has a nice mixed of traditional R&B/rap-style music with a more classical smooth style that really helps give the movie a timeless appeal.

Overall, for something that caused so much hype and outrage because of its involvement in the Academy, Moonlight doesn’t leave that much of a shine on itself without that over-hyping on both sides. Love it or hate it, there’s pros and cons all over this movie and it results in a movie that feels underground, yet with a Hollywood budget, which can be seen as a good or a bad thing. As a whole, the movie lacks a clear motivation to latch onto, has characters that show potential, but never blossom, a story that seems to leave out the most interesting parts of this man’s life, and plenty of visual and sub-textual elements that work great in concept, but fall flat because the simple elements aren’t fleshed out enough to make the audience care. From a basic viewing perspective, this movie is a solid film with perfectly fine elements, but it’s not going to ‘wow’ you unless you really care about what the movie is talking about to the point where you overlook its shortcoming, and while those topics are definitely important (and the movie is commendable for talking about said topics), they could’ve been talked about much more interestingly. Of course, it’s great to see more stories about people of color and of different sexual orientations, but they don’t get a pass or bonus points just for featuring those elements, they need to be made interesting and this movie sadly doesn’t really do that. Decide for yourself which one you prefer out of the academy winners and see if you take a shine to this movie like it did with other people.