A love story, a mother-and-son story, a story about being closed off from the world until you realize there’s no way forward unless you join it. Barry Jenkins’ Moonlight engages on multiple levels, but it’s also a work of astonishing delicacy, a picture that sweeps you up like a wave and drops you, gently, in a place you never expected to be. Three marvelous actors play a single character, Chiron, at various stages in his life—from his youth in Miami to his adulthood as a street-toughened drug dealer—but the picture boasts an off-the-charts number of superb supporting performances too, from the likes of André Holland, Naomie Harris, Mahershala Ali and Janelle Monáe. Every small, enveloping detail counts in this rapturous picture.
