Stars: Naomie Harris, Mahershala Ali, Janelle Mone
Directed by: Barry Jenkins
Rated: R
Opening Date: Friday October 21, 2016
By Jerry Nadarajah
Barry Jenkins’ Moonlight is one of the best films of 2016. It tells the story of a young Miami man named Chiron, who is portrayed, over about 20 years, by three different actors. Based on an unproduced, semi-autobiographical stage play In Moonlight Black Boys Look Blue by Tarell Alvin McCraney, Moonlight is an intensely personal film. Jenkins rearranges McCraney’s nonlinear narrative into three distinct chapters in the life of Chiron (played as a young boy by Alex Hibbert, as an adolescent by Ashton Sanders, and a grown man by Trevante Rhodes).
We first encounter Chiron running away from a bunch of other kids who want to beat him up. He is smaller than most of them – they call him ‘Little’ (which is the name of this chapter). He is different in ways he doesn’t fully understand. They suspect that he might be gay. His mother, Paula (Naomi Harris, riveting) tumbles from infrequent drug user to full-on junkie – she knows why he is bullied. Paula and Chiron live in a housing project. Juan (Mahershala Ali, fantastic) controls the drug traffic in the neighborhood and ends up becoming a father figure to Chiron. Juan lives with his partner Teresa (Janelle Monae) – their home becomes a place of refuge for Chiron. But, we know that Juan is the root of Paula’s pain. There is a heartbreaking scene where Chiron asks Juan some really tough questions: “My mama does drugs?” “And you sell the drugs?” “What’s a faggot?”
