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  Inspired by the unpublished theatre project "In Moonlight Black Boys Look Blue" (Tarell Alvin McCraney), the film is split into three parts each of which is named after the different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.