The Movie Moonlight

Moonlight is that rare movie that succeeds in almost every way possible for a film of its kind. It’s the story of how to save a child by teaching him self-acceptance. This film is really not a love story in the traditional sense, it is a self-love story. The very core of this story is about a boy we all knew, but didn’t uplift and support like we should have. Moonlight told one of the most compelling, consistent and specific stories you will ever witness, which is fairly hard for a film about people of color to do. It changes everything.

Moonlight is about this introverted nine year old kid, Chiron (Alex R. Hibbert), from Miami who gets his fair share of bullying from his classmates who has labeled him "soft" and dubbed him "Little". Ironically

He at least kicks the "Little" nickname he was christened with when he was a child. His crack addict mother, Paula (Naomi Davis), doesn’t make his life any easier either. In his youth, you see how Chiron must live while being attacked in and out of home. Besides his drug king mentor, at least he had his friend Kevin (played by Jaden Piner, Jharrel Jerome, and André Holland) for support. As adult Chiron (Trevante Rhodes), who now goes by “Black”, he takes after his mentor and starts to deal drugs.

Moonlight is, according to the director and screenwriter (Barry Jenkins), loosely based on "In Moonlight Black Boys Look Blue" a play by Tarell Alvin McCraney. This amazing film does a fantastic job of showing the human experience and all it's glory and lowliness. The fact that a gay black child is put in the very center of this special narrative just elevates the film's potential from the

The film doesn’t have a soundtrack, instead it has a mostly original score which is “chopped and screwed” throughout the piece. Britell was able to do this after learning of the director’s love for the sub-genre of hip hop. Chopped and screwed music is this form of southern hip-hop where you are taking tracks of music and you slow them down. Anyone knows when you slow music down like that, the pitch goes down. You would also repeat and reposition certain phrases. You do that to the point where the music, an exceedingly weird manner, is stretched and bent. Hip hop artists tend to talk very fast and in the wake of this mumble rap error, there many times you can miss what they are saying. With a track gets chopped and screwed you can feel the emotion behind it like you never heard it before. Same emotions that Barry wanted conveyed in the