For those who aren't in the know: Moonlight is a movie about a black boy who grows up gay in Miami that won several awards. The plot can be googled.

I was able to see this movie at a public screening. I liked it a lot. It's a very hyped movie so naturally it took me a while to actually see it.

The cinematography in it is gorgeous. It's been compared to In the Mood for Love (another movie I took ages to watch even though it seemed like My Thing). The scene where Juan teaches him to swim for example: I could fear the potential danger of the high, sloshing water. Or the scenes where Chiron dunks his head in a sink filled with ice water. The parallels between Juan and adult Chiron driving in his car with the crown on the dash. Although his settings were mundane there were a lot of bright colors: the diner scene for example.

Although Chiron lived a different life from me, I went "same" at some things. He was bullied for being gay before he even knew what that meant or if he was gay and was shy and withdrawn for these reasons. He decided to fight back with violence when a mob ganged up on him. The theatre audience clapped when he busted a chair over that guy's head (and then the police led him away, d'oh).

I definitely think he should count as "fictional character with ptsd" - he has a nightmare about his mother yelling at him and his vision appears to spin during particularly stressful scenes. And he got beat up by his classmates and has probably seen some. things. In his life. Plus the lack of emotional comfort for his problems. That would cause that.

Unlike the action movies I'm used to watching, there was room for the emotions to breathe because of the long pauses and moments without music (this movie utilizes incidental music a lot - it starts off with a song playing on the radio as Juan pulls into a driveway, for example). The romance felt natural in that it went from friend to boyfriend and really...wholesome? I approve of the idea that your romantic interests should be people you are comfortable being friends with. I loved that Kevin invited Chiron to the diner so he could cook the "chef's special" and play a romantic song on the jukebox. I dunno how likely it is that people end up with someone they had a crush on as a little kid, though.

Trevante Rhodes is very attractive too. I feel like Chiron beefed up and "put on armor" in response to being beat on by others.

I feel like movies like this are like vegetables - the kind you put off seeing even though it's supposed to be "good for you". There was definitely a lot of tension in the movie and the obvious fact that the main characters had difficult lives. One of the audience members commented that they grew up "in the projects" and the violence in the movie felt typical to them. What struck me was how different Chiron and Kevin were from the idea of a "gay community" as I've understood it for most of my life, and race/class has a lot to do with it.

It's likely other sites have better commentary on this movie but I just wanted Subeta to know it's worth seeing. It's a gay movie where main couple doesn't die and seem to end up together.

I came here looking for a thread about Moonlight, and I found your nice commentary and felt very lucky! ^^ (I don't normally find posts on here about movies that I like.)

I already loved the idea that this movie won the oscars without even seeing it. When they finally showed it in cinemas in my country, naturally I had to go see it - and I was not disappointed! The movie had some sort of European movie feel despite being American, which I liked very much (I just can't stand these movies where things explode like all the time and people never shut up lol). Also, it was less physically violent than expected (by me), which was good. I guess I couldn't be more different from Chiron (except the shyness, which I found was very realistically depicted), but the movie really let me experience what he was going through. I found it very refreshing that Chiron was not a stereotypical gay character. I don't know how to say this, but in a lot of movies, it feels like they want to make absolutely sure you get that a character is lgtb+ and thus exaggerate certain things. But this is not necessary at all if you know how to tell your story. Subtlety is nice. The cast was really great too. It seemed like they were all very carefully chosen, so I did not care too much if some facial features changed a lot between stages of time. Everyone seemed to give their absolute best! Also, I agree about Trevante Rhodes being very attractive ;) Oh, and last but not least, I agree about the friends becoming lovers being a really great way - why would you be with someone you wouldn't want to spend time with as a friend anyways? I really liked that too.

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