Movie review: Oscar-contender 'Moonlight' is lit up with rare wisdom

Since its debut at last year's Toronto Film Festival, there have been thousands of lines of awed appreciation written about Barry Jenkins's second film, 'Moonlight'.

It has also garnered a bucket load of awards including eight Oscar nominations - and for once you can believe the hype. Its magnetic, poetic images and captivating performances stick in your head long after seeing it and the more you think about it the more there is to marvel at.

Based on the play In Moonlight Black Boys Look Blue by Tarell Alvin McCraney (who is gay) and directed by Jenkins (who is straight), it is an empathetic and deeply honest exploration of a young black man's struggle to come to terms with his sexual identity and a fraught relationship with his drug-addicted mother in the ghettoes of Miami, told through three stages in his life.

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When we first meet him he is a quiet, uncomfortable child, nicknamed Little by his peers who ostracise him. Living alone with his crack-smoking nurse mother Paula (Naomie Harris in an electrifying, career-defining performance), Little seeks the more balanced and attentive comforts offered by local drug dealer Juan (Mahershala Ali, also brilliantly enigmatic in his brief role) and Juan's girlfriend Teresa (Janelle Monáe, who acts even better than she sings).

The couple take an unexplained but sincere interest in Little and try to get him to open up. The closest friend his own age, Kevin, unsuccessfully encourages him to fight back. Things aren't helped by the fact that Juan sells the drugs that increasingly ruin Paula.

The scene between Alex Hibbert (who plays Little) and Juan's Ali, in which the child confronts his substitute father about this, is quietly devastating.

In the second chapter of the film, titled Chiron (Little's birth name), the awkward boy has grown into an awkward teenager (played by Ashton Sanders), who is rejected by everyone except Kevin (Jharrel Jerome), with whom he shares an erotically charged friendship.

Chiron's mother is a full-blown addict and he's largely on his own. When Kevin turns on Chiron it has lasting consequences for their relationship, the resolutions of which form the basis for the film's third and final chapter.

Here Chiron has grown into a muscle-bound, bling-wearing, gold grillz-sporting drug dealer named Black (Trevante Rhodes). It seems that his background has prescribed his destiny - but when he receives a call from Kevin (André Holland), who is now an ex-con divorcee working as a cook in a diner in Atlanta, Black takes a trip to visit his old friend and deal with the unspoken tensions they never resolved as teenagers.

WATCH the trailer for Moonlight

Moonlight is a powerful and elegiac piece of film making tied together by the shared experiences of its creators, who both grew up with drug-addicted mothers in the ghettoes of Miami.

It is about masculinity, sexuality, growing up black and poor in the US, but it chooses mood over story, and performances over flashy storytelling. It resonates beyond any heavy-handed issues thanks to its empathy and intelligence.

With only his second feature movie, Jenkins has leapt to the top of the mountain.

WHAT OTHERS SAY

• Manages to feel grand and intricate in the same moment, weaving random memories and crucial life experiences into a gripping tapestry. - David Sims, The Atlantic

• The subject matter is tough; the experience is touching. - Louise Keller, Urban Cinefile

• An urgent social document, a hard look at American reality and a poem written in light, music and vivid human faces. - AO Scott, New York Times

• 'Moonlight' opens in cinemas on Friday, February 10.

• This article was first published in The Times.