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Canberra Today 19°/23° | Friday, March 29, 2024 | Digital Edition | Crossword & Sudoku

Review / ‘Moonlight’ (MA) ****

“MOONLIGHT” delivers a broad array of emotions, observations, hopes and disappointments, determination and desperations, told around Chiron, a young black growing up in an environment devoid of life’s boons. 

‘Moonlight’

Afro-American writer/director Barry Jenkins’s film tells Chiron’s story in three acts. In Act 1, Alex Hibbert plays the nine-year-old son of crack-using Paula (Naomie Harris) in a crime-ridden area of Miami. At school he is the butt of bullying. On the street, drug dealer Juan (Mahershala Ali) and his wife (Janelle Monaie) try to protect him.

Act 2 is adolescence. Sixteen-year-old Chiron (Ashton Sanders) now lacks Juan’s protection, especially from class-mates led by Terrel (Patrick Decile).  Paula makes him give her drug money. Hispanic boy Kevin (Jharrel Jerome) befriends him. The two lads experiment with manustupration. 

We wonder how much longer Chiron will tolerate Terrel’s name-calling. Chiron’s eventual response deserves to go down as a great moment in the annals of cinema. The cops who take him away show no interest in enquiring why he did it.

In Act 3, a decade later, Chiron (now called Black and played by Trevante Rhodes) is out of prison. He visits Paula, now recovering in a correction centre, and the pair mends fences. Kevin (now played by Steven Bron), now a restaurant cook with a wife and child, phones and invites him to call in for a meal. The two friends reminisce and Black unburdens his feelings from adolescence. The ending is enigmatic.

Box-office staff routinely say ”Enjoy the movie”. “Moonlight” was not made merely to enjoy. If it’s nominated for best picture Oscar, I’d happily see it beat “La La Land”. Its US earnings since mid-October are already more than twice its budget. It’s packed with cinematic creative virtues. It invites us to think outside our comfort zone. And in so doing, we may find our cinema experience delivering unexpected rewards.

At Palace Electric from 26 January

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Dougal Macdonald

Dougal Macdonald

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