Ah yes, the M-word — so overused and abused, so very dangerous to throw around when you’re talking about an artist with only two films under his belt. But Moonlight earns the right to be identified as a cinematic pinnacle as well as a personal statement; this is what “the movies” look like when the medium’s full arsenal of expression is being tapped by someone with vision. In adapting playwright Tarell Alvin McCraney’s work “In Moonlight Black Boys Look Blue,” [director, Barry] Jenkins has found a vehicle for refracting various aspects of African-American life through the prism of one sensitive kid’s bumpy journey to manhood, one woozy, swooning shot at a time.

Moonlight [is Jenkins’] ambitious sophomore movie about a young African-American male’s coming-of-age and breaking-of-spirit. Such an immersive, sensuous film will already make you feel that you’ve stepped into another world entirely, one of painfully sunny Miami afternoons where dealers make their paper and deep-blue midnights at a beach where melancholy handjobs take place… The movie [has a] palpable sense of you-are-there Southerness. [And] it isn’t like this extraordinary character study required [anything else] to make you feel the love and heartbreak of its lonely hero.  ~~ David Fear, Rolling Stone

Rated: R
Digital Presentation
Running Time: 110 minutes