Chris At The Pictures

Moonlight begins with a statement by song: Boris Gardiner’s Every N****r is a Star. The star in this movie’s galaxy is Chiron (Alex Hibbert/Ashton Sanders/Trevante Rhodes), a young black man struggling with his sexuality. Based on a drama school project by playwright Tarell Alvin McCraney, the film takes the form of three distinct acts that track Chiron’s journey from childhood, through adolescence and into adulthood. These segments in turn are constructed of vignettes so delicate and tender you daren’t breathe, lest they shatter.

Flat-out racism and refusal to engage with diverse narratives aside, I cannot understand the mind-set of critics and audiences who declare nothing to connect with here. Whether it’s the question of how we choose to identify versus the labels placed on us by others, how masculinity takes many different forms, the interlinking between sexuality and expression, or even subtle notes on depression and anxiety,Moonlight offers so much to discuss with barely a word spoken. Mahershala Ali (long may he reign) provides the major mouthpiece as Juan; a drug dealer who dispenses wisdom to a young Chiron (nicknamed Little). It’s through Juan’s calm intonation and the prolonged silences of pain by each incarnation of Chiron (incidentally, all three leads are perfect) that gives the film such a profound voice despite a deference to showing, not telling.

Every single moment of exquisite heartache is elevated by James Laxton’s cinematography. The colours meld and blur and burn, a kaleidoscope of cool blues and searing purple that are incredible even when removed from the context of a film that gifts us so many indelible images. Director Barry Jenkins has shown me things that cinema has never offered before: a romantic jukebox denouement reserved for two men, a complete lack of white speaking parts, and the sight of a muscled black man crying that isn’t played for comedic effect, even remotely.

This complete contrast with any film I’ve ever seen before is probably my favourite thing about a film full of astonishing elements. I have a terrible habit of referring to other films an awful lot, but Moonlight is so different that I have almost no frame of reference, and I can’t understate how exciting that is. The one allusion I could find was a comparison with this year’s A Monster Calls, which I said empowered every lonely child to “admit their quietest truth at thunderous volume”. Moonlight is the flipside; expressing the loudest components of self-expression and character as a mere whisper.

I’m not about to say I had a ball with it, because that wouldn’t be entirely true: I think one could argue that some of the narrative might fall into place a little too neatly. I’m tempted to say that’s not necessarily a bad thing – given how the minorities represented are so rarely given any kind of narrative justice – but I am aware that saying so might come across as patronising.

While its general themes are infinitely successful, its specificity is still occasionally difficult for someone so far from its frame of reference…but I don’t consider that an issue. For those who do understand these experiences, who have had their background, sexuality and racial identity used as the basis for prejudice, Moonlight is going to be unspeakably important. The specific periphery of Jenkins’ film is what makes it so special, what makes it feel like a story where, for the briefest instant, the outside world may as well not exist; a welcome escape indeed.

Like many others, I’m sure; this review begins with a clarification. No, more a resigned confession: I’ve never been one for musicals. While everyone else of my generation grew up with the animated song-and-dance phenomenon of the Disney renaissance, the closest I got were cartoons with a few songs in them (predominantly Toy Story, the Phil Collins-heavy Tarzan and a crummy VHS copy of The Transformers: The Movie). There’ve been some exceptions every now and then, including but not limited to Jeff Wayne’s The War of the Worlds, parts of Les Miserables, and the time my housemate practically forced me to watch Chicago. Despite the varying quality of those examples, nothing has ever been able to shake my innate prejudice. I spent the opening logos of La La Land braced to cringe, waiting for the spasm in my gut and the embarrassed shiver to cross my cheeks…but neither came.

Instead, I spent two hours jigging my knee up and down in glee, weeping in wonder and beaming in total surrender, side-by-side with my mum (who, fittingly, took me to see Tarzan all those years ago). For those of you who’ve been living under a rock since the film’s dazzling first appearance at the Venice film festival, Damien Chazelle (Whiplash) directs Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone as Sebastian and Mia, two California dreamers who begin to fall in love after a chance encounter on a busy highway. Seb aspires to open his own Jazz club (in order to save what he sees as a dying genre), and Mia, a wannabe actor, is desperate to escape her life of serving coffee to the inhabitants of the Warner Bros. backlot (“That’s the street from Blade Runner!” – I whispered excitedly as the pair wandered among the vintage façades).

Yeah, I’ve never found myself attached to the grand heritage La La Land is so clearly besotted with, but throw in a location from one of my favourite movies, an original John Legend song and not one, but two sequences paying homage to Rebel Without a Cause, and you’ve got every inch of my being in an unrelenting embrace. Plus, giving Stone a lead role helps. Honestly, I could gush for hours about how her every eye roll, head spin and half-smile in this has extended my life expectancy by several decades, but we’d be here for twice that length.

Where Gosling is concerned, another of my long-held prejudices has been put to rest. While his woozy eyes have understandably wowed many, to me his expression has always appeared vacant, almost detached. In Shane Black’s The Nice Guys, this worked wonders (his character was a complete klutz), and here, too, his hazy gaze speaks to something authentic: the far-reaching mind of a dreamer. I finally get it, you guys.

Okay, now I’ve confessed and repented for my sins, can I gush about the routines, please? Cool, thanks: Justin Hurwitz’ songs are perfect, the dances move with the sweep and grace of sublime animation, and all are presented in a rainbow-soaked palette as flavoursome and primary as a packet of fruit pastilles. Standouts include a hilltop toe-tap (that moonlit beauty from the poster), a one-shot parkour through heavy traffic and a soaring waltz among the stars. Despite wanting to, I hesitate to blabber further: I’d hate to ruin any of what this film has in store.

In contrast to the stark colours, the morality of the story - of Seb and Mia’s victories and sacrifices - is far from black and white. I’m pressed to label it ‘earnest to a fault’…but, well; it hasn't got one! Chazelle knows we’re too cynical to buy a total lovesick ode to Tinseltown right now, so peppers the sweet with spice. Even I (a sometimes fantastically over-sentimental soul) could understand why the film makes certain moves towards the flip-side of fairy tales, undertaking manoeuvres I can’t illustrate any clearer for, again, fear of spoiling the surprise.

So: a glorious ear-worm of a soundtrack, astounding visuals, unfairly loveable stars and a surprisingly textured narrative…I think that just about covers it! Wait, there’s a ‘Take on Me’ cover, too? Complete with Gosling passive-aggressively plinking a keytar? Sod it, take your five stars and get out of here; you’re already too good for 2017 as it is.

P.S. Please don’t actually go, we need you. Badly.