Why ‘Moonlight’ Won Best Picture

In what was supposed to be a guaranteed win for La La Land (and it was for a whole 60 seconds), the Academy Award for best picture went to Moonlight.

There has never been a movie like Moonlight.

I’m not saying that storylines like this haven’t been done. Audiences have seen the coming of age of a young man trying to find his place in this world. However, it hasn’t quite been done this way.

The movie is alive and breathing. It calls for your full attention. Moonlight demands your presence because the story that it is about to tell you is the plain, unabashed, God-given truth.

Adapted from Tarell Alvin McCraney’s autobiographical play In Moonlight Black Boys Look Blue, it tells the story of a young black boy named Chiron who is growing up in the Liberty City neighborhood of Miami. He is raised by an absent, crack-addicted mother but he finds his sense of family with the neighborhood drug dealer, Juan (portrayed by Mahershala Ali, who is also nominated for Best Supporting Actor this year) and his partner, Teresa (Janelle Monae).

Chiron’s story is told in three different acts played by Alex Hibbert, Ashton Sanders, and Trevante Rhodes. The three actors carry the same mannerisms and idiosyncrasies, their eyes convey the same quiet loneliness, even as they portray Chiron’s varied experiences as he grows up. There is a sadness that carries through at each age of his life.

Moonlight is upfront about what it deals with, and it does not deal in absolutes. It lets you know that this is about poverty, blackness, and homosexuality. And while these are things that are all essential to Chiron’s identity, they do not make him into a caricature. Moonlight makes sure you see this young man’s life as whole and not in slices—a credit to its director, Barry Jenkins, and his vision to show the audience the full spectrum of a human experience.

There’s a scene in the first act with a group of boys at the park. The camera pans around to show their faces up close, and suddenly, Mozart becomes the music that follows their movements. There is a grace to these young black boys playing football. They are carefree. They are joyful.

Another moment of significant silence comes when Juan and Chiron wade into the warm waters of the Atlantic and Juan teaches Chiron how to float. There is an inherent trust that comes from someone teaching you how to float, to trust that they will not let you drown. The song for that moment is titled “The Middle of the World,” and for Chiron, it is.

Later on in the movie, and in Chiron’s life, we see him visit his childhood friend, and love interest, Kevin. There is a moment where Kevin plays a song that reminded him of Chiron. Kevin turns away from the jukebox and places a hand on his chest—the connection between him and Chiron is palpable. It is felt in that silent exchange.

Moonlight is exceptional because you are firmly planted in Chiron’s reality—in the reality of a gay black man living in a poor neighborhood. He is constantly surrounded by so many factors that yell at him to not be who he is, from the toxic masculinity that permeates throughout his neighborhood and culture to his mother and her struggle with addiction and neglect of her child..

The danger of that is evident, and yet there is an obvious softness to Chiron’s story.
Moonlight is not a story of survival. Of surviving an addictive mother, of surviving a rough neighborhood, of surviving bullies or drugs. It’s a story about life and the way it just simply is.

 

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Header Image by Orlando Mendiola.