Miami. Chapter I: Drug-dealer Juan spots some bullies chasing a little kid, Chiron, who hides in an abandoned building. Juan brings Chiron back to his mom, Paula, a prostitute and drug-addict. Juan becomes Chiron’s friend and mentor. Chapter II: a teenage Chiron hides that he is gay. He has a romantic encounter with his friend Kevin who gives him a hand-job. School bully Terrel pressures Kevin into punching Chiron, and then kicks Chiron with other bullies. Later, Chiron slams a chair against Terrel and is arrested. Chapter III: a grown up Chiron, now a drug dealer, returns to his city upon invitation of Kevin, now a cook, who makes him a meal in a snack bar. Later, in Kevin’s home, Chiron admits he was the only man who touched him. Kevin comforts him.
“Moonlight” is a puzzlingly uneven film comprised out of three chapters that are not only different stylistically, but also qualitatively: chapter I is undoubtedly excellent, but the others never repeat that high impression, since chapter II is good, but chapter III, which was supposed to be the crucial final act, messes everything up. Chapter I starts out as a typically cliche crime flick involving a drug dealer Juan in a poor neighborhood, but then some bullies pass by him on the street, chasing a little kid, Chiron, and from there on it seems as if this segment breaks away from this mold and goes against everything that we expected, to become a different movie, making a de-tour into this beautiful friendship between Chiron and Juan, who takes pitty on the kid and decides to help him. Instead of a ‘tough’ criminal, we got a friendship of two gentle souls which is genuine and touching, featuring at least one great dialogue (“What is a faggot?” - “It’s a word used to make gay people feel bad”) whereas the director Barry Jenkins has a sense for finesse when Juan realizes Chiron’s mom is buying his drugs.
Chapter II is never up to the level of the previous segment, but it is still good, featuring Chiron’s tender first gay encounter on the beach, and showing how he is bullied in school, contemplating this ill-treatment of a minority-within-a-minority (a gay in an African-American neighborhood). Chiron’s reaction at the end is weird, but understandable. One plot hole bothers here, though: why was he arrested for attacking the bully, but the police didn’t arrest the bullies after they beat him up on the ground? There were more than enough witnesses. Chapter III is unfortunately the weakest one of the lot, and ends “Moonlight” on a disappointing note. With its 45 minutes of running time, it is the longest chapter, and had the burden of concluding the storyline about growing up and finding one’s identity, but is overstretched and drawn out since it was unnecessary to sit through a routine story of a grown up Chiron just sitting the entire time with Kevin at a diner only to get to that one good part in the last sentence. Mahershala Ali was building up his character of Juan wonderfully in chapter I, but it seems as if he was cut short or interrupted since Juan doesn’t show up neither in chapter II nor III, which is illogical and unsatisfying: since he was supposed to be Chiron’s good friend, he could have played a crucial role at the end and helped to heal him. This way, Juan was forgotten and failed to become a great role. “Moonlight” is very good, but not a great film. Its awards may be the result of a need to pay-off a debt for ignoring “Brokeback Mountain” 11 years earlier. It is a remarkably personal and honest little film, but it would have been so much better if its last chapter had been at least half as good as its first chapter.
Grade:++
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