

I very rarely remember conversations, you know? I kind of remember feelings and moments and I’m just trying to translate some of those things into the work, with this piece in particular. “I’m not at home talking, you know? I like just being. “I don’t like talking so much,” Jenkins said. There’s just no way you catch everything the first time, even if you aren’t scribbling observations into a notepad. The physical performances in Moonlight are so layered and controlled that the film bears new revelations upon subsequent viewings. The ContendersĬhiron is withdrawn and self-protective, and like his mentor Juan, who also happens to be the neighborhood dope man, played by Mahershala Ali, we learn about Chiron by studying his movements and especially his eyes. In Moonlight, those silences are sometimes punctuated by small, ambient noises while others are given a flourish with Nicholas Britell’s score, as they are when Little runs across a field with a pack of boys, chasing after a makeshift soccer ball made primarily of duct tape. Jenkins uses operatic silences and sparse dialogue to draw you into the film, building on the exploration of intimacy and alienation he first introduced in the 2008 film Medicine for Melancholy. Moonlight is a character study rendered with aching tenderness, a portrait of how the smallest kindnesses and the biggest cruelties can stay with a person.
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Like both Jenkins and McCraney’s mothers were, Chiron’s mother, Paula, is addicted to crack cocaine, and Chiron spends his childhood watching his mother descend deeper into her addiction. It’s an introspective, poetic triptych that follows the central character through three parts of his life: as a small, elementary school-age boy called Little (Alex Hibbert), a high schooler who goes by his given name, Chiron, pronounced shy-RONE (Ashton Sanders), and an adult drug dealer named Black (Rhodes). You have to drop the “r” when you say it, though: Poke ’n’ Beans.

Moonlight tells the story of one boy who grew up in Miami’s Liberty Square housing project, known to many of its residents as the Pork and Beans.

Jenkins was mostly content to hang back in the conversation, offering affirmations of his actors, or small addendums to their stories. I spoke with Jenkins in a roundtable that included Moonlight actors Trevante Rhodes, André Holland, Naomie Harris, and playwright Tarell Alvin McCraney, who has a story credit on the film.

For once, it’s safe to believe the hype: Moonlight is just as extraordinary as the continuous stream of glowing praise it’s been receiving would have you believe. Jenkins is the slight, bespectacled director of the film on everyone’s lips these days: Moonlight. Barry Jenkins doesn’t like to talk much, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t have a lot to say.
