Moonlight

Moonlight can be seen as the polar opposite of other Oscar nominee Fences. Defiantly modern. Emotional and sensitive. Deftly handling its themes and motifs. And cinematic to a tee. Plus both were based on plays (Moonlight being based on the screenwriter’s play Moonlight Black Boys Look Blue). Like Kendrick Lamar’s 2016 album, To Pimp A Butterfly, this feels like a state of nation address but not in the way you would expect (both share a sampling of the same Boris Gardiner song as their opening). Moonlight is an emotional and powerful experience that becomes a universal story about feeling like an outsider.

We follow the journey of Chiron, an outcast African-American child struggling to grow up in a coming-of-age story set in Miami. The film is split into three sections as we see Chiron grow up as played by three different actors. We first meet Chiron as a child when he is widely known as “Little”. Little is quiet and solemn, struggling with his loneliness, his addict mother and making friends. He is found alone in an abandoned apartment by a drug dealer named Juan, who takes Little under his wing to teach him about the ways of the world. The second section deals with Chiron in high school, now besotted by hormones, unreleased rage and coming to the realisation that he is homosexual. This is probably the strongest section of the film as the emotions feel raw and all too real. The final section sees Chiron as a young man, now known as “Black”, who has become hardened and distant from the world. A chance call from an old school friend (who also shared an intimate moment with Chiron) brings him back to Miami to maybe face up to his wrought past and hidden emotions.

Moonlight stands out due to its visual style. Barry Jenkins and cinematographer James Laxton resist a photo-realistic, faux-documentary style in favour of a stylised, mellow, almost washed out blue palette, with some scenes intentionally out of focus to evoke memories and the passage of time. To any cinephile that can't accept digital filmmaking into their lives, I beg them to look at this film. This is the promise of digital filmmaking. The filmmakers eschew normal genre expectations – drug dealers and crack-head mothers are in the films but they never fall into stereotypes. Surprisingly, it is also free of a rap heavy soundtrack. The filmmakers are urging us to look past the cliches and our pre-conceptions about these characters. The cast are presented as flawed humans, struggling along with Chiron. Guns are in the film but they are never used in a violent way, only to suggest and imply the life style these characters are forced to lead. It’s a potentially hostile environment with little room for escape.

Of course the best element of the film is the decision to have three different actors play Chiron in the three segments. I wish an Oscar could be given to all three of these actors for building up and continuing a character arc that is sensitive, emotional and 100% absorbing. Alex Hubert perfectly captures the traumatised innocent, wide-eyed yet withdrawn and quiet. He delivers one of the most powerful moments in the film – when he finds out his new father figure is a drug dealer and that his mother is an addict. Ashton Saunders is gawky, gangly and outcast as teenage Chiron, who embodies the hormonal frustration and anger of any teenager. Finally, Trevante Rhodes plays Chiron, or “Black”, as a towering and hardened man who betrays elements of his deeply hidden emotions. These are multi-faceted performances that are given roughly equal screen time and allow us to completely understand and relate to Chiron’s experience. Many have compared the style to Linklater’s Boyhood, which is fair – whereas Boyhood was a massive accomplishment on a technical and practical level, keeping the same cast for 12 years, I would argue that Moonlight is more focused. That said, they do serve as nice companion pieces on the experience of growing up American.

The other players in the film are those most important in Chiron’s life. Juan, played by Mahershala Ali, tries to take “Little” under his wings, teaching him important life lessons and hard truths about the world. Ali’s performance is fatherly, eschewing normal expectations from this role to reveal a tenderness rarely seen in this genre figure. Similarly, Naomie Harris, as Chiron’s mother (who almost turned the script down due to the surface level cliché of the character) is a similarly flawed human being – she is also clearly fighting her inner demons but going about it in the wrong way. Her love for Chiron often manifests itself in the wrong way. This is another multi-layered performance that continues to reveal new depths throughout the chapters of the film, especially in the final one.

Moonlight is an unmissable film. The technique, acting and script all work together to build a beautiful portrait of a man struggling with his deeply hidden emotions and traumatic past. It urges us to look past stereotypes and search for true identity. Everyone has a story. And everyone is shaped by their story. Thoroughly modern and utterly compelling.

Rating: 10/10

Fences

Fences is based on a Pulitzer Prize winning play, with a screenplay from the original playwright, which unfortunately does not translate well to screen. Bolstered by great performances from the two leads, Denzel Washington (who also directs) and Viola Davis, the film never shakes its theatrical roots to be become truly cinematic. The film has been met with wide-spread critical acclaim and an Oscar nomination (I have my theory on why this was nominated but I’ll probably save it for a think piece post-Oscar night) but, for this writer, the film never found its focus. 

Troy Maxson (Washington) collects garbage for a living. He just about makes ends meet for his wife Rose (Davis) and son living in 1950s Pittsburgh. However, they live in a pressure cooker situation. Troy is an old-school hard worker and struggles with keeping up with the modern day. His son shun chores to be part of the school football team, which to his father’s annoyance. Troy’s brother suffers from mental health issues after an accident in World War II. But Troy’s personality just about keeps all this in check. However, a secret about Troy is revealed that shows his inner frustrations about his work and home life, which threatens to rip the family apart. 

The film’s problem is that it never shakes off its theatre roots. On stage, an intimate surrounding can be created where the audience is getting an up-close and personal look at a set of characters. Having a small piece of set, such as the backyard of a house, works on stage for having characters enter and exit scenes and helps us to concentrate on the character's drama and understand the intensity of a situation But cinema is different – it has a different language to theatre, which the filmmakers don't seem to have understood. The exact same set up is used in the film, where we have to endure a near two and a half hours of the same backlot set filmed in static, uninteresting shots as characters exit and enter scenes. We are constantly reminded that this story was planned for a more confined space. The static camera work and one-set location was probably done so the audience could engage fully with the actors’ performances (the lead actor is also the director after all) but there is nothing cinematic about this. I almost cheered when we moved to a new location or the camera did something new with its set ups. The film loses the immediacy and intensity of the stage and is not cinematic for these elements to shine through a new way, with so many opportunities in the adaptation. Show the degradation of Troy’s work. Show the push and pulls that bring him to make the decisions he does. Be brave enough to move away from the source material whilst remaining faithful. One only needs to compare this film to Moonlight, also based on a play, to see the cinematic potential in adapting something for film originally intended for the stage. I reminded of the very basics of filmmaking – show, don't tell.  

Now this style may not have bothered me so much if the script focus was better. Fences’ biggest problem is that it doesn't know where its focus lies. The first half spends too much time establishing these characters becoming very repetitive in its step ups. Dialogue is constantly thrown at the audience leaving very little breathing room. Troy regales his friends with stories from his childhood, his time as a criminal and his shot at being a baseball star but the dull style means the scenes never really engage the way they should (again, these anecdotes probably work really well on stage). The actual plot only really kicks in during second half, which takes an unexpected turn. Troy reveals to Rose that he is having a child with another woman, who he has been seeing secretly. Later, this ‘other woman’ dies in child birth (completely off-screen) and leaves Troy and Rose with a baby girl to raise. This is an abrupt turn, which only comes into focus when a character makes an off-handed comment to Troy. I imagine this is abrupt in the stage play as well but again the language of theatre would allow these scenes to breathe and communicate through the staging. All of this is woven in with father and son conflicts, prejudice and changing attitudes towards African-Americans in the 1950s (this is only brought up occasionally in the film), work vs. life balance, mental health issues, Christian motifs and adulatory. There is a really strong character piece in here somewhere about the effects of toxic masculinity but Fences never leaps off the screen the way it should.  

The acting of Fences is uniformly excellent but I have to come to the realisation that a film needs more than that to be truly great. The language of cinema is a powerful tool and can be used in conjunction with excellent acting. Despite their similarities, film and theatre are very different. I imagine Fences working well on stage, as an intimate drama about a man on the edge (and would probably have enjoyed a lot more) but the film is too reverent to the source material. There's a nagging feeling that this belongs on stage. There are moments scattered in the film where the potential is there for a moving piece (the highlights being the scene where Troy says he doesn't love/like his son, his drunken outbursts in the final act and revealing the truth to Rose) but sadly these are few and far between. There are plenty of wordy dramas out there that are excellent but they work because the dialogue and style go hand in hand. I recommend putting up a fence around this one. 

Rating: 5/10 

The Lego Batman Movie

It's a strange day indeed when a Lego Batman film can comfortably sit as one of the superhero’s best films. But then again, surprises appear to be part and parcel of Lego movies. Rewind to 2014 when The Lego Movie was released. What could have been a cynical 90 minute commercial for the popular toy line turned into a very funny and surprisingly intelligent take on “chosen one” narratives, that took more cues from Huxley’s Brave New World and Orwell’s 1984 than standard kid’s fare. Of course, one of the standout characters was Will Arnett’s Batman, a very funny take of the dark and brooding character, who is clearly sending up the Nolan vision of the caped crusader. Arnett is a master of taking sociopathic, egomaniacal and depressive characters and turning those traits into humour (see his performances as Gob in Arrested Development and the titular character of the incredible Netflix show Bojack Horseman) – making him a perfect choice for Batman! So clever writing plus a brilliant comedic actor equals a spin off that is often funny, several times brilliant but doesn't quite hit the high water mark of The Lego Movie. This is the Batman film for people who are sick of seeing Batman but it somehow manages to not veer into cynicism and still be reverent to the character. Plus, it's the only Batman film that really gets an important core of the character – his adoptive family. 

Batman (Will Arnett) is well loved around Lego Gotham but he has become incredibly lonely and tries to shut everyone out due to takin on the mantle of being the dark knight. He protects himself by shunning others – including a potential bromance with The Joker (Zach Galifianakis), who is incredibly upset when Batman claims he does not see him as his greatest rival. Pressure increases on Batman when the new police commissioner, Barbara Gordon (Rosario Dawson), wants the Gotham force to team up with the superhero and finds himself besotted with an adopted child he forgot he agreed to look after, Dick Grayson (Michael Cera). Not to mention that Alfred (Ralph Fiennes) is also incredibly concerned about what is now left of Bruce Wayne's social life. The Joker, upset by his rejection, forms a fiendish scheme to get back at Batman and prove that he is indeed his greatest enemy. Batman must get his groove back together, learn to work as a team and foil the Joker’s nefarious scheme.  

The Lego Batman Movie boasts many of the original film’s best attributes: wonderful animation, great one-liners, an irreverent sense of humour and the joy of seeing skilled animators bring Lego pieces to life. The main difference is that Lego Batman plays it a bit more straight. The Lego Movie didn't reveal all its card in one go and saved a game changing turn for the third act that was intelligent and gave a whole new perspective to the proceedings. Lego Batman tries to do this with a mid-point reveal about the members of Joker’s crew, and in turn the wider Lego-verse, but doesn't quite hit home in the same way. It’s more clever in a “this is like Lego Dimensions the video game” than “this is a brilliant and unexpected turn that completely changes our reading of the whole film”. In the fact, the elements that feel a bit old are the Lego elements, to the point where I question if this even needed to be a Lego movie. The script, acting and loving spoof of the character would be more than enough for a funny animated film but the Lego layer doesn't really add much to it (outside of a wider roster of Warner Bros’ owned characters). Weirdly, it plays to much a younger audience than The Lego Movie, which could be enjoyed by all audiences on some level. This give Lego Batman more of a brand feel as opposed to a film literally about Lego (if that makes sense).

Now that said, all the other elements that make up the rest of the film work really well. The humour, as mentioned, is spot on. Will Arnett’s delivery and performance as Batman is pitch perfect – almost like if Bojack Horseman decided to take up the mantle of being a superhero (minus the drugs, booze and sex). Batman is an arse and the film does not shy away from this. The deadpan delivery is in contrast to Michael Cera’s hyperactive Dick Grayson, aka Robin, who enters into Batman’s life like a crashing train, who also gets some big laughs. Zach Galifianakis actually manages to turn in an oddly sympathetic Joker. The character’s expression and tone of his voice following his rejection by Batman is probably the comedic highlight of the film. Along with the great line deliveries, the visual gags help to carry the film. Even if they don't all land, so many are thrown at the audience that there's bound to be something that will make you laugh. Every incarnation of Batman is referenced. An early gag has Joker team up with several Z-list villains, all taken from the pages of the comics or TV show at some point, with The Joker encouraging the audience to  google them to prove they are real! They are even pretty merciless in taking down recent developments in the character’s on screen persona (looking at you Batman v Superman). Whilst the animation doesn't quite have the freshness it did back in 2014, there is still a charm in seeing these bricks come to life. It is bright, colourful and incredibly appealing to look at. The best piece of animation is probably seeing the transformation of the Batmobile, from car to aircraft. It feels like a real piece of stop motion animation in the best way possible.  

The Lego Batman Movie manages to ride the line between family entertainment and clever satire of the Batman mythos. While it definitely does play to a much younger audience than The Lego Movie (and loses some of that movie’s greatest elements) a great cast (especially Arnett) and witty script make it worth the price of admission. The loving spoof of all things Batman make for great references and jokes for long term fans. In this regard, it is a celebration and farce of all aspects of the character on screen: the goofy 60s show, the gothic Burton films, the Schumacher failures, the brooding Nolan meditations and the ultra violent Synder murderer. It also manages to work in one of the character’s key components often missed on screen – the extended Bat family. Oddly enough, it succeeds more as a Batman film than as a Lego movie, which unfortunately means it lacks based on the standard set by the original film. The best thing the film does though is bring a big-screen version of the character back to children, something that has been lacking for a long time. 

Rating: 7/10