Moonlight * * *

    

To be safe, as  a white middle class heterosexual male I shouldn’t  say anything bad about this film; because if I do, it must because I can’t relate to it - because  I’m a white middle class heterosexual male, right?

    Ah well, I’ll just have to cop it.  It doesn’t need my help anyway.  There is enough respectable reviewers out there gushing about it, keen to let the world know that they’re ready to stand shoulder to shoulder with the oppressed.  Never mind the quality, feel the content. Well, good for all those  involved in the making of Moonlight I suppose.

    Moonlight is the new darling of the cinema, receiving mostly rave reviews. But in my opinion it is somewhat overrated.  In fact, most of the time I found it straight out boring.

     As others have predicted before me, it’ll probably do really well on the awards nights for all the right (or wrong) reasons (and probably be forgotten a short time later).

    It’s an arty “hand held camera” film of a young man's life, told in three parts. He’s an African-American kid from  Florida who has a neglectful upbringing and no support as he begins to realise he is gay.

    We meet him as a boy. Frightened and being bullied by other school boys he hides in the kind of house where junkies hang out.  A drug dealer with a disgusting business but a good heart takes to looking after him. But he still goes home to his junkie Mum most nights, who it turns out is a client of the dealer.

    We meet him again as a teenager: His Mum is still a junkie making his life miserable.

    One night whilst hanging out with  an acquaintance who is secretly gay, his own sexual feelings are awakened.

    As a teenager the bullying continues until he explodes, thus starting his prison experience.

    Lastly we see him as a man in his twenties.  He has built himself up. You wouldn't want try bullying this boy now. He has a superb physique.  But the shy and insecure little boy we first met still lives inside him.  

    Despite his physical perfection his life has been sexless. One night he gets into his car and takes a symbolic journey to face up to that which he knows about himself.

    Yes, it sounds like a pretty good story but really it is deprived of oxygen. It is laboriously and self consciously told, complete with lush incongruous classical music. Aside from it’s subject matter and good intent, the one redeeming feature is the quality of the actors, when the scenes allow it they soar, not with histrionics but with moving understatement.  But otherwise I found Moonlight plodding and wearisome to watch.

     There have probably been dozens of thematically similar but superior films shown at the Gay and Lesbian Film Festivals over the years, and otherwise ignored by the mainstream.  But for 2017 Moonlight is the film everyone has decided to embrace with queer enthusiasm (pun intended), except for me and a few other detractors - some of whom are even gay and black apparently.