I finally got around to watching the Academy Award winner. Moonlight is a journey of a young boy in three stages of his life as he struggles with exploring his identity, suffers physical and emotional abuse along the way, and learns to rise above it. The movie is about forgiveness, empathy, and importance of being open to sharing feelings and a very important one in current times in my opinion.What caught my eye the most was the style of the movie. The director Barry Jenkins tells each stage of Chiron's life as a kid, teenager, and an adult in three beautiful vignettes and a story that hasn't been explored in cinema a lot from what I remember (Admittedly, I do see lot less movies :) ). It explores the African America culture in a more layered and rounded fashion and feels very intimate and grounded. James Laxton's cinematography makes you feel the emotions just from the shots and goes well with intensity of Nicholas Brittel's bass-heavy music. Everyone acts their heart out including Mahershala Ali and especially the the three actors portraying Chiron. Everything you needed to get out a scene, you get from just their silenced dialogues and facial expressions.
Out of all the Oscar nominated movies, Hidden Figures was still my favorite but I can see why this movie won. It felt the most different of all the other movies in almost every department and kudos to the crew for going out of the box.