Cutting-edge drama 'Moonlight' pushes empathy, forgiveness

Barry Jenkins' character study "Moonlight" proves to be every bit as luminous, mysterious and elemental as its title.

This extraordinary, cutting-edge drama affirms the importance of dads and moms to be present and accounted for with their children.

It encourages empathy for, tolerance of and patience with fellow humans while on our constant search for identity.

Mostly, "Moonlight" asserts how cleansing, positive and propelling the power of forgiveness can be in one of the most sensitive and specific, yet curiously universal movies I have ever seen.

"Moonlight" looks at the evolution of a gay, African American, 1980s Florida boy at three stages in life: as a painfully shy, bullied 9-year-old called "Little" (Alex Hibbert); as a troubled and confused teen named Chiron (Ashton Sanders); and later as do-ragged Black (Trevante Rhodes), a tough and ripped drug dealer emulating the only father figure he has ever known, Cuban-born Juan (Mahershala Ali), a street dealer who befriends Little after discovering the cowering boy alone in an abandoned apartment.

Juan takes Little under his wing, giving him the guidance, support and attention denied by his strung-out, single mom Paula (Naomie Harris), too busy making money with tricks to pay him any attention.

The three actors who play Chiron seem spiritually and physically connected, as if they were one person in different time periods. (In one year, Jenkins accomplishes the amazing level of character authenticity that it took Richard Linklater 12 years to obtain with his single actor, Ellar Coltrane.)

"Moonlight" comes from Tarell Alvin McCraney's short play, "In Moonlight Black Boys Look Blue." Everything that the filmmakers bring to this experience arrives like real news in the cinema.

Cinematographer James Laxton's moody, powerful images sweep us into Chiron's emotional states through his anxious, prowling, cautiously moving camera lens that perceives the world quite differently than what we get in Hollywood projects.

Nicholas Britell's iconoclastic score runs an impressive gamut of musical genres, eschewing expected commercial rap, save for one number that thematically announces the arrival of Chiron as the adult Black.

Without clichés, pretenses or dodges, "Moonlight" portrays male intimacy with moving sensitivity when the withdrawn and isolated Chiron experiences his first encounter with childhood friend Kevin (Jharrel Jerome), only later to have Kevin beat him up at school to show homophobic bullies that he's not gay.

"Moonlight" marks a raw, yet surprisingly gentle examination of African American masculinity that proves what the late film critic Roger Ebert meant when he described the movies as "empathy machines."

Of course, empathy machines can cut both ways.

Jenkins' amazing movie cuts the right way.

“Moonlight”

★ ★ ★ ★

Starring: Alex Hibbert, Naomie Harris, Ashton Sanders, Mahershala Ali, Andre Holland

Directed by: Barry Jenkins

Other: An A24 release. At AMC River East 21 and Century Centre in Chicago, plus the Evanston Century 12. Not rated by the MPAA; contains drug subject matter, adult language, sexual situations, violence. 110 minutes