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A life, any life, is a collection of moments — and the beauty of writer-director Barry Jenkins' incandescent drama "Moonlight" is how he crystallizes three moments in the life of a young African-American man into a film that's so moving and beautiful.
Jenkins, inspired by a play by Tarell McCraney, tells in three parts the story of Chiron, an African American living in Miami. The first chapter introduces Chiron (played by Alex Hibbert) as a 10-year-old dubbed "Little" by the bullies who torment him. He has one friend, Kevin (Jaden Pinar).
Then Juan (Mahershala Ali), the neighborhood crack dealer, takes Little under his wing. Little spends the night at Juan's mansion, doted on by Juan's girlfriend, Teresa (Janelle Monáe). When Little doesn't come home until the next morning, his mother, Paula (Naomie Harris), grounds him. Little's relationships with his mother and with Juan become more intense, and complex, when he learns his mother has started to smoke crack — and that Juan has been selling it to her.
The second chapter finds Chiron as a teen (played by Ashton Sanders), frequently harassed at high school. His mother has become a full-blown crack addict, though Juan is no longer in the picture. He remains friends with Kevin (played as a teen by Jharrel Jerome), but that relationship changes when, one night on the beach, they share their first sexual encounter. Before they can process that change in their friendship, pressures at school drive Chiron to the breaking point.
Part three shows Chiron as an adult (played by Trevante Rhodes), with the street name Black, living in Atlanta and seemingly modeling his life on Juan's: dealing drugs, making money, driving an expensive car. Out of the blue, he gets a call from Kevin (now played by André Holland), now working in a Miami diner. Jolted by the memory of their past, Black goes to Miami, first to check in on his mother in rehab, and then to see Kevin again.
As with Richard Linklater's 12-years-in-the-making "Boyhood," "Moonlight" begins by showing how someone in their younger years is a spectator in their own life. Little is still forming as a person, and the influence of the adults around him — Juan, Teresa and his mother — factors into the character we meet in high school and adulthood.
Young Hibbert plays Little as a wary observer, his eyes showing a brain that is processing all that is thrown at him. As a teen, Sanders' Chiron deftly bridges the divide between the picked-on little kid and the trying-to-be-tough adult. And Rhodes, as the adult Black, reveals traces of the scared Little and the lovelorn Chiron. The combination of performances is amazing, as the three actors conspire to create one richly drawn character.
That richness spills over into the supporting performances. Best of all is Ali (known for his work on "House of Cards" and the "Hunger Games" films), whose performance captures the calculation and the inner pain of a man trying to reconcile his fatherly care for Little with the destruction his drug business does to people — including Little's mother.
Much will be made of the moment in which "Moonlight" arrives — the age of Black Lives Matter and Beyoncé, when African-American identity is at once fiercely declared and constantly imperiled — but this is a movie that works far deeper than the headlines, burrowing straight to the heartache and humanity that unite us all.
Twitter: @moviecricket —
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'Moonlight'
Filmmaker Barry Jenkins' modern masterpiece, telling a life story in three acts, is an emotional journey that's both timely and timeless.
Where • Broadway Centre Cinemas.
When • Opens Friday, Nov. 11.
Rating • R for some sexuality, drug use, brief violence, and language throughout.
Running time • 110 minutes.