Review: Moonlight, 2016, dir. Barry Jenkins

I’ve not yet stumbled upon a review of Moonlight that has found a way to associate the film’s message with the central philosophies of the Black Lives Matter movement, mostly because that movement is not germane to the film’s messages and because, I suspect, any white author writing about Barry Jenkins’ extraordinary second feature is smart enough to realize that doing so would be tacky as fuck. Moonlight is a movie about a black man’s life, and it is delicate, layered, heartbreaking, uplifting, and so many other things – as I note in my review for Paste Magazine – that it would be a faux pas to attempt to shuffle them all under a too-small umbrella. (Of course black lives matter. The movie doesn’t need to say that to actually say that, though, and neither should you.) In short, read my review, and also buy a ticket to see the movie. This is in part what the #OscarsSoWhite backlash was all about.