Moonlight (15)

SO often at the Oscars there is a justified outcry over the snubbing of black directors and performers. Next week’s ceremony should involve less indignation, given the nominations in that regard. But more noteworthy than the praise for individuals is the fact that three of the nine best film contenders – Moonlight, Hidden Figures and Fences – are about the experience of African Americans. All three are noteworthy, and they all open here this week.

Moonlight is the stand-out, an exquisitely made, moving and profound film, whose artful storytelling might obscure how much ground it covers – black identity, sexual identity, mother-son relationships, absent fathers and drug addiction, spanning almost 20 years in a tough Miami district. Despite its weighty themes, the film has a touch of poetry about it.

Writer/director Barry Jenkins has adapted a short piece by the playwright Tarell Alvin McCraney, In Moonlight Black Boys Look Blue, which concerns the young Chiron, struggling to deal with his homosexuality in a community that is far from sympathetic. Jenkins has introduced a distinct three-part structure, which presents formative periods in Chiron’s life, with different actors playing him.

It opens in the 1980s, with the shy, introverted 10-year-old, known by his nickname, “Little”, bullied by other kids and given an equally hard time at home by his single mother, the crack addict Paula (Naomie Harris). Surprising respite comes courtesy of drug dealer Juan (Mahershala Ali), who becomes something of a father figure and who, with his girlfriend Teresa (Janelle Monái), offers the lad a home from home.

Neither we nor the characters are spared the complexities of the situation. When an angry Juan ask of Paula, “You gonna raise him?”, her retort is, “You gonna keep selling me rocks?” But the script acknowledges that even drug dealers can be victims of their environment. And Juan, who perhaps sees something of his younger self in Chiron, exerts a positive influence, whether combining a swimming lesson in the ocean with homespun philosophy about black identity, or sensitively dealing with the fall-out when the boy’s own mother calls him a “faggot”.

Nevertheless, the second section finds the teenage Chiron still suffering – his mother stealing from him to fuel her habit, and the bullying at school reaching a critical level. Because of events now, the Chiron of the final part, a decade later, is physically a very different person; inside, he’s much the same.

Strictly speaking, this isn’t a coming-of-age story; and it would feel trite to call it a coming out film. What it does do is chart a reticent, lonely, conflicted young man’s painful journey towards coming to terms with who he is – black, gay, his mother’s son, and someone who doesn’t have to succumb to the machismo around him.

In both his writing and direction Jenkins has fashioned a piece that feels startlingly original; far from the edginess of so many films set in urban projects, the tone here is elegiac, becoming incredibly touching as the grown-up, beefed-up, gold-toothed Chiron edges towards a loving connection.

This poetic tone is informed by the fluid, richly hued camerawork, a gorgeously contemplative score, and an outstanding ensemble. Harris offers the sparks, as the mother defeated by addiction. But it’s the quiet, internalised performances of the boys and men that lend the film its special character. In particular, Trevante Rhodes as the adult Chiron and André Holland as his one empathetic friend have beautiful scenes together, and Mahershala Ali’s atypical, tender dealer ought to be one of those who triumphs come Oscar night.

Also released

Fences (12A)

Denzel Washington directs and stars as a struggling working-class man in 1950s Pittsburgh, whose bitterness erodes his relationship with his wife (Viola Davis) and son. Though it doesn’t sufficiently escape it’s theatrical roots, there’s no doubting the powerhouse performances.

Hidden Figures (PG)

Gloriously entertaining real-life story of the unsung heroines of the Space Race – a trio of African American women who overcome the racism and sexism of the 1960s to take part as mathematicians in NASA’s attempt to send a man into space.

John Wick: Chapter 2 (15)

Keanu Reeves’s second outing as the assassin who finds it impossible to retire. Funny and ingenious, but the body count gets wearing.

The Great Wall (12A)

Matt Damon stars as a Western mercenary battling monsters on the Great Wall of China, in a ravishing, yet underwhelming fantasy epic.

The Founder (12A)

Michael Keaton is Ray Kroc, the salesman who turned the McDonald brothers’ genius idea for fast food into a global franchise – while cutting the boys out of the deal.