So we saw Moonlight today, the low-budget art-house film that’s been getting lots of media coverage in the past couple weeks, about a young boy struggling with his identity as he grows up in a drug-infested ghetto of Miami. The story is told in three episodes, and in each, the boy is played by a different actor–as Chiron avoids his drug addicted mother; suffers schoolboy bullying at school; finally as a buff adult trying to find a connection in his life. The acting and cinematography and musical cues are all excellent, but by Hollywood standards the film is very slow and introspective. It might get some Oscar nods, but it will never be a box office hit. Finally, I have to say, without being any way spoilery, it has a subtly heartbreaking ending, in a way you almost certainly will not anticipate.
Note the movie poster image is a collage of the three actors playing the boy at different ages.
As an aside, the AMC theatre where we saw this showed at least 6 trailers before the film, including those for two violent action pictures, which seemed completely at odds with the tone of the film we were there to see. But all six film trailers involved black actors in leading roles.
