Moonlight

Barry Jenkins' critically acclaimed "Moonlight" is an ambitious film quietly told. Examining the intensity and struggle of growing up black and gay, this is a side of a culture we haven't seen portrayed on the big screen, and for that we should be thankful. There are times the storytelling wavers, and it certainly demands patience, but there is enough here to praise that it's understandable why the film has been getting the attention is has.

Based on the autobiographical play by Tarell Alvin McCraney, "Moonlight" visits the same character of Chiron at three different stages in his life. In the first part we meet him as "Little" (Alex R. Hibbert) -- a shy, bullied adolescent who lives with his drugged-out mother (Naomie Harris) in Miami. One day as he is being chased by school thugs, he finds refuge in an abandoned apartment building, only to be rescued by a sensitive drug dealer named Juan (Mahershala Ali) who takes the boy under his wing -- not to teach him the ways of the street, but to make sure he's okay. He becomes a surrogate father figure while his girlfriend Teresa (Janelle Monae) becomes a surrogate mother. In this we feel like even though there are bad elements all around him, Little might actually grow up to be okay.

In the second part, we meet Teenage Chiron as "Chiron." Now played by Ashton Sanders, he is a skinny, timid kid with only one real friend in Kevin (Jharrell Jerome, a big-talking womanizer he's known since he was Little. While Chiron must persist in dealing with his increasingly problematic mother and continues his friendship with Teresa, he starts to realize he has feelings for Kevin... or at least, the sex that Kevin is. This leads to a moment of intimacy that is tender and moving, but ultimately unsatisfying. Soon after, tragedy strikes with the school bullies, and this sets off a course of events for Chiron that change him in unexpected ways.

By the time we get to the third and final segment of the film, Chiron (Trevante Rhodes) now goes by "Black" (a nickname given to him by Kevin) and he is a muscled-up, gold-grill wearing drug dealer in Atlanta. But an unexpected call allows him to face who he truly is, and begin to (hopefully) become the man he's always wanted to become.

This is the key question of "Moonlight." People in Chiron's life keep asking him, "Who is you?" Chiron can never really answer. Literally. He doesn't know who he is, and his struggles with his sexuality make that all too complicated for him. This is the strength of Jenkin's film, mostly because his actors are impeccable. From all three incarnations of Chiron, to Harris and Monae, Ali, and Andre Holland as the adult Kevin, every actor brings a depth and complexity to their characters that rings painfully true.

Admittedly, there were times where certain parts of Chiron's life goes unexplored, and while Jenkins subverts our expectations during incidents we expect to go a certain way, sometimes it feels false. Aside from the one tragic incident that changes the course of Chiron's life, he has good people around him. And even when Little asks Juan and Teresa "Am I a faggot?" and they respond with tenderness and understanding, it doesn't ring true, especially in the age where AIDS was still a big, scary thing. It was nice to see reactions that we weren't expecting, but when it happens multiple times it ultimately feels convenient.

That said, the film is beautifully told and shot, although some audiences will have their patience tested with long, Malick-like takes and large swaths of silence. It's all there for a reason, but it won't appeal to the masses. This is an important film and it's a good film. It's not a masterpiece, but it's a tale that needed to be told, and that fact is a sad reminder that it's taken far too long to tell it.