Ever get left speechless? Hear, see, touch, or taste something so rare that you don't want to bruise its petals with your clumsy analysis? That's how I feel about Moonlight—yet that is exactly what I must do. Moonlight pulses with subtle, lived-in details that may just feel like breathing memory to a whole generation of African Americans. I can't imagine what it must be like to be Black and queer and see something as vital and rare as Moonlight for the first time. But what's most unexpected is that these lives may just get to live, happily and understood, at least to some degree. America hasn't left much room for that outcome, and neither has the art we see about it. Our narratives deliver tragedy, spectacle, and melodrama. Stories like Moonlight, told humanely and intelligently, with complexity, nuance, and hope, may help more of its children envision their own.
Read Larry Mizell Jr.'s full review. by Larry Mizell Jr.