Moonlight

(warning: contains spoilers for Moonlight)

So, the thing about La La Land is that...Wait, there's been a mistake. 

Moonlight is the film I'm reviewing (laaaaame joke, but it's right there).

So, now we're out of Oscar season, we know that Moonlight came away with a very respectable haul of awards, winning Best Picture, Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Supporting Actor for Mahershala Ali (a name that is particularly pleasing to say).  As such, it has created a lot of "firsts".  For example: it is the first film with an all-black cast and the first LGBT film to win the Academy Award for Best

Picture.  Joi McMillon (one of the editors) became the first black woman to be nominated for an editing Oscar.  Mahershala Ali is the first Muslim to win an acting Oscar (and is one of an embarrassingly small group of 17 black actors who have won an acting Oscar).  So we know that it is a history making film.  Honest Trailers went as far as renaming it "All the Oscar Things" after describing it thus:

"...a poetic unfolding of a life, beautifully directed by Barry Jenkins as this young (tick), black (tick), gay (tick) man struggles to escape from poverty (tick) and drug addiction (tick).  Told across three decades (tick), based on the life story of it's author (tick), so yeah I'd say it's nominated for an Oscar."

Definitely not La La Land

That's a good description.  Inspired by the unpublished theatre project "In Moonlight Black Boys Look Blue" (Tarell Alvin McCraney), the film is split into three parts each of which is named after the different identities that the central character is known by ("Little", "Chiron" and "Black") in his childhood, adolescence and adulthood respectively.  Those acts break very cleanly into setup, confrontation and resolution.  There is no driving plot narrative, each part examines the life of the protagonist - where he is, who he's with, what he's doing.  The only two other characters that recur in all three parts are Paula (Chiron's mother, a care worker whose addiction to crack and subsequent decline is charted as the film progresses.  She is played by an almost unrecognisable Naomie Harris) and Kevin (Chiron's childhood friend, and the subject of his first sexual experience).

In terms of awards, for me it's not the best film but it is an important one.  On the back of the #Oscarssowhite furore of the past few years, here is a film that speaks about what it is to be a) black and b) gay, and be proud of both.  Is there a comparable film - if there is, I don't know it.  A good film should enable me to experience, understand and empathise with characters who have a different experience than my own.  To that end, this film succeeds by miles.  Additionally, the juxtapositions are stark, but pass by almost without being commented upon.  Black (as he is at the end of the film) outwardly looks fierce, with unsmiling gold teeth, but is the most vulnerable and brittle character of the film.  There are virtually no older role models (particularly male role models).  The closest we have is Juan (Ali) who is a mess of contrasts himself - a tall, imposing man who is a drug dealer but who befriends the young Little and confounds expectations by teaching him how to swim, making sure he is fed, offering his own home with its clean (and always available) spare bed and providing this foundation to teenage Chiron's sexuality:

Chiron: "What's a faggot?"
Juan: "A faggot is a word used to make gay people feel bad."
Chiron: "Am I a faggot?"
Juan: "You might be gay but don't let anyone ever call you a faggot."

It is positively cheering that Juan is the most "masculine" character, and the absolute model of gay acceptance.  He features heavily in the life of Little, and then symbolically in the life of Chiron (in the house that Chiron visits) and Black (represented by the little gold crown on the dashboard of his car).


Spoilers: Juan does not just drop Little in the sea.
I would totally have done that.
And that's why no one makes films about me.

I doubt it is accidental that none of these characters "succeed" in a conventional sense.  By the end, most have been involved in drugs, prison, gangs and fights.  Their jobs are low income, or downright illegal.  Everyone in Black's life is under some kind of state surveillance by the end.  But none of that matters because they are all more than their circumstances.

If I'm honest, I wasn't blown away by this film when I first saw it.  I watched in a warm cinema on a Monday evening after work.  I was half asleep, and this film is not full of riveting action.  But the more I write about it in this review, the more sure I am that I need to see it again.  And so do you.

Important life lesson: always love a man who can cook.

Additional thoughts, comments, questions:

1.  This is not a particularly female friendly film.  The two women Paula (Naomie Harris) and Teresa (Janelle Monae) are thinly written at best.  But even they provide an interesting contrast to each other as Chiron's biological mother (who neglects him) vs his "adoptive" mother who has no children, but is a better parent.

2.  Parenting itself is a noteworthy theme of the film.  When Juan calls Paula out for being a neglectful, drug addicted mother who cannot take care of her child, she rightly points out that he is the person selling her drugs so is contributing and participating in the neglect of Chiron.

3.  This film looks beautiful.  I want to go to Miami and eat all the food.    



Cinderella (2015)

It’s a Disney film, so it’s cheesy. I was fully expecting that going in, and was not at all disappointed. I don’t mind a cheesy film as long as it doesn’t pretend to not be cheesy, and I don’t think any Disney film markets itself as ‘not a cheesy Disney film’, so we’re all good there.

There was a lot of hubbub about this film even before it came out, as Cinderella’s (portrayed by Lily James) waist was allegedly photoshopped in the posters, and since this film is marketed at a young audience with its main constituents being female, a lot of people had concerns (and valid ones, too). To be honest, I’d assumed it was photoshopped since nearly every woman on a screen is, so the shock wasn’t there for me. I didn’t really want to instantly write off the film simply because of the poster, though I understand why people did. I hoped the film might have a different message, and the photoshopping of Cinderella’s waist was circumstantial rather than something the film called for.

Anyway, Cinderella is now on Netflix. And I loved every minute of it. As I said earlier, it’s cheesy. Cheddar cheesy. The renamed Ella is an elegant young lady who is the epitome of a Hufflepuff student. Her kindness almost radiates off her, as she elegantly floats her way through the film.

Early in the film, we see an around 10-year-old Ella, witness her mother dying. As her mother is on her deathbed, she tells Ella that courage and kindness are the keys to surviving all life’s struggles. Little Ella is told that she possesses more kindness in her little finger than most do in their entire bodies, and that it has power. She promises her mother that she will “have courage, and be kind”, and this buoys her throughout the rest of the story.

Soon after, we’re presented with a teenage Ella, who’s giving her blessing to her father to welcome in a widow and her two daughters, as Ella’s father believes this will be another chance at happiness. Needless to say, he was pitifully wrong and they cause them a ridiculous amount of trouble. Ella’s new stepmother (played by Cate Blanchett) has more depth in this film. In the original, the stepmother is evil for seemingly no reason, but this version of the stepmother allows for a little backstory. We’re told by the narrator (who is also the fairy godmother played by Helena Bonham-Carter) that the stepmother has known grief and heartache, and “wears it wonderfully”. Blanchett’s costumes are very dark, and use a palette of ivy greens, black, and burgundy.

Ella’s father leaves for a trip shortly after welcoming three new people into his home, which unbeknown to all the characters will be his last. The moment where Ella finds out her father has died is incredibly poignant; we know that Ella’s only ray of light in her life has been the promise of her father’s return, and with that gone, she has little left. But, she carries on, and stays with her stepmother and sisters in order to preserve the house that she and her parents were once so happy in.

On one particularly horrible day, she is bestowed the name Cinderella, as whilst she’s serving breakfast her stepmother notices ash and cinders on her face from sleeping by the fire. There’s a Love Actually esque scene where she makes her way to the kitchen and makes sure she’s alone before bursting into tears. She flees into to the woods on a horse, and who should she find there? The Prince, of course. She doesn’t know it’s him though. Neither tell each other who they really are, for fear of judgement – he doesn’t want her to know how rich he is, and she doesn’t want to know how poor she is. The Prince, who calls himself Kit (played charmingly by Richard Madden), is instantly captivated and delighted by Ella. He introduces himself as an apprentice, but she doesn’t tell him her name so he’s left wondering and wanting more, hence why he throws a ball where every maiden in the kingdom is invited in the hopes of seeing her again.

Ella cracks in the well-known part of the story where she presents herself in a dress to go to the ball in, and her stepfamily rips it apart. She’s had enough at this point, and in proper Disney fashion, she runs to a fountain then to the balcony for a good cry. And then, the fairy godmother appears. Helena Bonham-Carter plays the perfect fairy godmother. She mixes just the right amount of bonkers with intrigue. When they meet, a CGI almost aardvark looking Helena asks a tearful Ella for a bowl of milk. Ella obliges, and we are once again reminded that Ella’s superpower is her kindness. Ella is in disbelief to find she has a fairy godmother, but comes round when the fairy herself says, “I don’t go round transforming pumpkins for just anyone”. Watching the transformation of Ella's dress gave me goosebumps. It's just sooo pretty! 

The ball scene is as magnificent as you could expect it to be. Sandy Powell’s costumes throughout the whole film but particularly in this scene really are something else. Ella’s bright blue ballgown is fantastically enchanting, and is adorned with butterflies and Swarovsky crystals. Cate Blanchett said in an interview that it was particularly difficult for her to pretend to be annoyed and upset upon seeing Cinderella dance with the prince, since she looked so magical, and it’s easy to understand why. The extras in the ballroom ooh and ah as Ella and the prince twirl across the dance floor. It really plays like something from a dream.

The ending we all know – she tries on the slipper, it fits, they live happily ever after. But as Ella, wearing the same dirty blue dress she’d worn since near the beginning of the film, walks into the room to meet her prince, the narrator/fairy godmother tells us that “this is perhaps the greatest risk any of us will take; to be seen as we truly are”.

It’s full of metaphors and morals like most Disney films but doesn’t leave a bad taste in the mouth. The only thing that really got criticised in this film (in terms of representation) was its lack of racial diversity, and the fact that all the women are very tightly corseted. Patrick Doyle (Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Thor) delivers a romantic and magical score that fits the film perfectly, and left me humming certain riffs for days afterwards. It’s a true Romantic fairy tale, and leaves you wanting a little more than what you get but that’s why YouTube exists so you can find all the deleted scenes!

I really enjoyed it, and I know some people hated it, but it’s delightful and dazzling, and features a goose that can’t drive, and Rob Brydon basically reprising his role as Bryn. And I really want to watch it again.