Review by Zac Cameron
Moonlight is an absolutely gorgeous yet incredibly powerful movie. I was fortunate enough to experience it early through ODEON’s Screen Unseen as its general release is February 17, but i saw it earlier and my gosh did it not disappoint!
From the fantastic screenplay and direction from Barry Jenkins and lovely cinematography it’s aesthetically pleasing in every sense.
This film is incredibly harrowing though, and hard to watch. But it’s an absolutely excellent film none the less and I can see myself watching it again.
The acting is fantastic all round, in some cases the performances were that individually brilliant it reduced me to tears. The film is split into three sections of a young lad’s life called Chiron, or little. The division it is split into is when he was young, around middle school and then to adult, which i thought was perfect and another pleasing element to this film. Three different actors playing the same role just at stages in the person’s life was beautifully portrayed.
I also found the score to be very moving also which had a massive impact on my feelings in certain scenes.
This is a beautiful story split into three different sections of a black man struggling to come to terms with his sexuality, and it was done exquisitely and timed to perfection.
It was so hard to watch though personally, but all in all it’s a fantastic piece of film and deserves every accolade it gets for sure.
Naomi Harris is absolutely brilliant, she’s almost unrecognisable. She gives a gripping, challenging performance.
Mahershala Ali was robbed of his Golden Globe for sure. Also, the child actor Alex Hibbert was outstanding and very impressive, and the actors who played Chiron at later stages in his life which were Trevante Rhodes and Ashton Sanders were equally as amazing, but Hibbert did a fantastic job at maintaining composure throughout.
An emotional, raw, powerful film which will captivate the mind and make you think hard about what you think life is and how you have to decide who you want to be.
