Well known for its groundbreaking lighting of black actors, Moonlight embraces the tension of the location in what Jenkins calls “a beautiful nightmare” (Jenkins). Moonlight exquisitely uses light and color to enhance the immersion of the audience into Chiron’s thoughts and feelings.

Through Jenkins’ and McCraney’s unique use of lighting, color, and cinematography, Moonlight artistically exposes the humanity of a vastly underrepresented community and emotionally infuses Chiron’s thoughts and feelings into the audience’s core. The film directed by Barry Jenkins and written by Terrell McCraney, both men who grew up in Liberty City facing many of the same struggles Chiron does, fill the screen with remarkable authenticity. Moonlight as a dramatic film achieves what a classically labeled Melodrama is designed to do which as described by Thomas Elsaeser, is to “sharpen social conflicts and portray an urban environment where chance encounters, coincidences, and the side-by-side existence of extreme social and moral contrasts are the natural products of the very conditions of existence” (Trice). The film takes place in the height of Nixon’s “war on drugs” in America, where black communities associated with drugs were heavily criminalized and disrupted. Moonlight takes a breathtaking approach to the grim reality usually associated with drugs, poverty, and homophobia, and paints a beautiful picture around these themes with vibrant colors and unique lighting.

The story is told in three chapters labeled “Little,” “Chiron,” and “Black,” each chronicling Chiron’s childhood, teen years, and adult life. A coming of age story of a black, gay, and poor boy named Chiron living in 1980s Miami, the film is a visual, dream-like poem exposing the depth of the people living in the most dangerous hood of Miami: Liberty City. In a world where evil seems to lurk around every corner, social media is used to hide authenticity, and political anxiety rages, Moonlight reminds viewers that humanity can prevail through it all.

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