Moonlight

Rating: 97/100 🌕🌈💔 The tender, heartbreaking story of a young man’s struggle to find himself, told across three defining chapters in his life as he experiences the ecstasy, pain, and beauty of falling in love, while grappling with his own sexuality. Moonlight, directed by Barry Jenkins, is a heartbreaking and raw coming-of-age film that is adapted from an unpublished auto-biographical play by Tarell Alvin McCraney called Moonlight Black Boys Look Blue. This film stars Trevante Rhodes and André Holland and it won Best Picture at the 89th Academy Awards in 2017. This film captures you from the start. With its deep themes and raw emotion, this movie felt so real. This film really immerses you in three chapters of the protagonist’s life. The main highlights of this film are the acting and direction. The performances in this film are absolutely outstanding. Mahershala Ali plays the character, Juan, a father figure in Chiron’s early life. He really embodies this character and makes the performance look effortless. Trevante Rhodes also is great as the adult version of the protagonist. He clearly showcases emotion through body language and facial expressions. I was really shocked by his performance and the acting in this film in general is top notch. The direction was a big plus in this movie. Barry Jenkins skillfully adapted this coming-of-age story into a fantastic film that when the credits rolled, really impacted me. I felt the emotion from the characters, I was immersed in this story, and this film was directed perfectly. Overall, Moonlight is a fantastic coming-of-age film. It is perfectly directed, the visuals are stunning, the score is mesmerizing, the acting is so raw, and everything comes together masterfully. It deserved to win Best Picture and to me this film is a masterpiece.