Moonlight (2016)

User Review

• 

  Barneyonmovies

  9 / 10

  WHAT I LIKED: We've all seen great character-studies before, but what makes 'Moonlight,' such an unforgettable masterpiece is its gentle delivery and atmosphere that transports you into the story in a way few films ever manage. Indeed as opposed to playing this incredibly interesting life story with the large brush-strokes you might expect, director Barry Jenkins instead chooses to fuse small, intimate and engrossing moments or sensations together to form an overall picture and atmosphere with few words that consequently packs a huge emotional punch. In fact, it's perhaps a film more comparable to a novel in that regard; spending its time building atmosphere and in-the-moment engagement and allowing the audience to gather a clear, relatable understanding of their own. For example, Little's reaction to a play-fight with a friend early on packs a beautifully subtle post-coital quality that slowly conveys all the clues and meaning it needs to without a single word.
  The whole film continues in this similarly gentle vain, but it's only so successful because of the quality of everything on display as the use of this sublime score and such beautiful cinematography entrances whilst brilliant performances hook you and translate a thousand words with simple expressions and actions. In the end this amounts to a hugely graceful and engaging film that not only leaves you building up the picture as you go along, but will also have that painted in your mind for days on end.
  WHAT I DIDN'T LIKE: In a way it feels as though the approach shifts slightly in the third act, and it consequently becomes a little more heavy-handed and slightly less engaging than before.
  VERDICT: A truly brilliant piece of film that beautifully and gently shows what the pure art of cinema can do; 'Moonlight,' most definitely deserves the love it gets.

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