By James Greenberg
At a time when we could all use some love and kindness, “Moonlight” is like a balm for the mass meanness that seems to have taken hold of the country. Directed by Barry Jenkins, based on an autobiographical play by Tarell Alvin McCraney, the film follows the maturation of a young black man from youth to adulthood in a tough Miami neighborhood. It is not an easy journey and his victories are small and hard-won, but there is a sense of triumph in the emotional honesty of the characters.
Almost like a gritty, black version of “Boyhood,” the story unfolds in three chapters, starting on the drug-infested streets where young Chiron (Alex Hibbert), known as Little both for his size and demeanor, is trying to find his footing. Not easy when his mother is a crack addict and his sexual identity as a gay man is stirring. It’s all very confusing to the boy and, as if on cue, the sympathetic local drug dealer Juan (Mahershala Ali) rides into the picture, not on a white horse but a fancy car. With enormous compassion, despite his own flaws, Juan takes Chiron under wing, teaches him how to swim in a tender scene staged like a baptism, and shows him how to start being a man.
In the next section, Chiron (Ashton Sanders) is a slightly built and painfully shy high school student, subjected to the bullying of the school thugs. At the same time, his friendship with Kevin (Jharrel Jerome) grows and they share a rare moment of intimacy that will change both of their lives. Finally, Chiron is pushed beyond his breaking point and erupts, attacking his tormentors. For this he is taken off in a police car as the chapter ends.
Out of jail and back on the streets, the grown up and bulked up Chiron (Trevante Rhodes), has taken on the identity of his early role model Juan. He drives the same kind of car, wears metal fronts on his teeth, and has become a drug dealer in Georgia. It’s not much of a life but it’s the only one he knows how to live. However, when he has a tearful reunion with his mother (Naomie Harris), who is now doing better in a rehab center, there is a crack in Chiron’s armor; he longs to connect with another person.
That leads him back to Florida to his boyhood friend Kevin (André Holland), the one person he has always loved and trusted. And that is something you don’t have to be black or poor or gay to understand. Jenkins has given his characters a full measure of humanity, and the splendid actors breathe life into these people. “Moonlight” is personal filmmaking at its best, and a terrifically moving American story.
