Second Opinion: Moonlight

"I Won't Let You Go. Hey Man. I Got You. There You Go. Ten Seconds. Right There. You In The Middle Of The World..."

Within the final paragraph of my first review for Barry Jenkins' Moonlight not but a week past, I came to the conclusion that the eight time Oscar nominated picture was indeed an impressive piece of drama, but too a film which seemingly didn't hold up to the impressive amount of hype which had surrounded its' release for months since it first hit the festival circuit in late 2016, at least on first watch. With the review out for everyone to see, the usual state of affairs would be to forget the film and move swiftly on to the next one, particularly as on first glance, Moonlight didn't seem to be the masterpiece many had declared it to be. However, in a rather surrealist fashion, this past week has been one in which a wild conundrum has been constructed within my cinematic mind, questioning my original decision regarding the movie's qualities, due mainly to the fact that the sensual feelings and visuals of Barry Jenkins' dramatic coming-of-age tale cannot escape my mind long enough for it to be regarded as something other than a work of excellence. For a reviewer who finds it hard sometimes to admit when he is wrong and hold his arms out to graciously accept a slice of humble pie, Moonlight is a strange case of a film which hypnotises you the more you think about it but more impressively, captivates you the more times you sit down and admire it. 

 Like many films before it in which repeat viewings has either resulted in a film being better or worse than it seemed on first watch, Moonlight is a movie which I now can fully understand for what it is; a social realist drama about the conflicted nature of love within the confines of Miami's drug-ridden gang-lands, and although the film does still suffer from a middling final act in which the quest for ambiguity and exploration in terms of its' character's emotions does still become slightly repetitive and arduous, Trevante Rhodes does do a superb job of portraying a character who although is powerful and intimidating on the surface, underneath is a firework of emotions, lit by the calling of his one and only experience of love, concluding in a battle of repressed emotion which bears similarities to Casey Affleck's performance in Manchester By The Sea, a similarly low-key drama which focuses on the understatement of feelings rather than the dramatic pull of shouty soap-like confrontation. As stated previously, Mahershala Ali and Naomie Harris are indeed the stars of the show, with the former cementing an unforgettable performance of a cliche-avoiding drug dealer in the short time he has on-screen and the latter on second watch coming across as a terrifying entity of drug-infested mania, with the scene in which her character is filmed backwards harking towards more of a surrealist horror infliction and boy is it startling. 

Another element of Moonlight which was more noticeable on second watch was the superb choice of music encompassing the film's score, with Nicholas Britell mixing a crafty selection of modern hip-hop, classic soul and a striking use of strings, particularly "The Middle of the World", a violin-heavy piece of music which hits an arrangement of nerves in an almost Lynchian and somewhat surrealist fashion, adding breadth to the evidence of the film's more horror-inflicted elements. Concluding this particular feature therefore, Moonlight is indeed a working progress of a movie, where although La La Land and Manchester By The Sea are arguably more effective as an entire body of work, Moonlight is a movie which just can't seem to escape my train of thought for any meaningful length of time. What Barry Jenkins has here is a movie which has been scuppered by the tremendous level of hype surrounding it and whilst many would have shared similar views to my own on first glance, a second watch has improved and highlighted its' more impressive elements ten-fold. Whilst La La Land is still my personal preference for the Best Picture nod, Moonlight is the type of movie which wouldn't surprise me if it took the prestigious gong instead, a particular statement I wouldn't have said a week ago. How things change...

Overall Score: 8.5/10

(At Least on Second Watch)