Movie Review: Moonlight Chiron

While Marcus spent his childhood watching his mother sale drugs before her death, Chiron faces his childhood in different ways. Very shy coming up as a kid and confused about himself , Chiron or “Little” is constantly bullied about his size and his feminine ways, on top of trying to understand what are drugs and that his mother is addicted to drugs. The opening scene of the movies is where Chiron is being chased from school by a group of kids referring to him as a “faggot” as they forced him into running into a abandon crack house, where a local drug dealer named Juan later finds Chiron. Imposing yet gentle, Juan is a drug dealer who's addicted clients including Little’s increasingly bedraggled mother, Paula. Aided by his nurturing partner,

Kevin giving away her position by squawking- Naivety and innocence. The trust that people wouldn’t harm her and there’s nothing to worry about is soon re-evaluated whilst being chased by dogs.

that even though he and Sonny are both adults now he still feels the need to

His mother shared a story with him about his father and his uncle. She wanted him to promise to take care of his brother. She may have had an idea that Sonny was in trouble. After their mother died Sonny told his brother that he didn’t want to stay in Harlem anymore. His brother wanted him to finish school and stay another year. He saw the worry and concern in Sonny’s eyes, but dismissed it. This was Sonny’s way of telling his brother that he needed help before it was too late. Sonny pulled away from him and stated, “I hear you. But you never hear anything I say.”

The narrator experienced a lot of problems throughout his life but managed to emerge victoriously from most of them. Even with this, he needs to support Sonny because this was his mother's dying wish. "The death of the narrator's daughter, Sonny's failure to fit in with his own family, a stint in the navy all serve to alienate the brothers, even after their mother made the narrator promise to keep an eye on young Sonny" (Smith 22). The fact that they were born in a harsh environment, society's views in regard to their racial background, and the fact that they experienced a lot of hardships during their lives all had a severe effect on the personalities of each of the brothers.

As a young black male who values success, the narrator avoided contact with Sonny. The attachment between the two siblings weakened greatly. This is clear when the narrator is asked about how he will help Sonny, who at the time is in prison, and responds "Look. I haven't seen Sonny for over a year. I'm not sure I'm going to do anything" (Baldwin 252).

Ah, The Sandlot. A movie full of fifth and sixth grade boys playing baseball in the Summer. If you think it sounds boring, you're wrong. This is an excellent movie. It starts with a boy, named Scotty (Tom Guiry) who needs friends. He needed friends so bad that his mom was even concerned about him being cooped up in the house for a quarter of the summer. One day, he wanders to a baseball field and his want to have friends and be a part of something comes true. He even got a nickname, "Smalls". The boys did everything together, even got into and out of trouble together. But the number one important thing all nine of the boys did, was meet at the baseball field every single day.

When Sonny moves in with the family, he is given the expectation to finish college and stay out of trouble. Sonny has other ideas though and skips his classes to go to the local jazz club and play music. When the narrator first learns of Sonny’s antics he is very disappointed and is frustrated that Sonny continues to pursue a musical career. He believes it is part of the reason that Sonny has had so much trouble in the past and doesn’t believe it is a positive thing for his brother. Sonny is immediately kicked out and the two go for another extended period of time until talking again. Eventually the narrator has another change of heart and invites his brother to live with him again and Sonny agrees. The two struggle to communicate so one day Sonny invites the narrator to come watch him play at the jazz club and it is then that the narrator truly understands his younger brother. He is watching Sonny play with a group of musicians when he sees “Sonny’s face is trouble” (Baldwin 254) with the difficulty in

something for Sonny it was because his mother had wanted him to, not because he

When Calogero was nicknamed “C” by sonny he took on a lot more responsibility. As stated in the movie, Calogeros dad told Sonny, you made him grow up to fast. Calogero became more of a teleological ethical system when he became “C”. He judged the consequences of the act of telling the truth to the police. Even a bad act, if it results in good consequences, can be defined as good under a theological system”. (Pollock, 2012: 25). Calogero and his friends became different when Sonny came into the picture. They kind of went separate ways because Sonny was always taking Calogero away. As C grows up and becomes a teenager, socialization occurs. Resocialization is radically

Even though Juan tries to help Chiron by teaching him how to swim and stand up for himself, he is ultimately contributing to the dysfunction in Chiron’s life.

The encounter the narrator has with Sonny’s childhood friend shows that the narrator judges others just off of appearance and knowing little about them:

Part Two “Chiron” fast forwards to Chiron, now a high school student, still continuing to be bullied by his peers, who now more than ever suspect him to be gay. Nothing much has changed, he is still very coiled up and scrawny framed. Chiron and Kevin have continued to stay friends through out the years, but in the middle of the scene, there friendship takes a different turn. One night on the beach Kevin and Chiron share and intimate moment, Chiron’s first and only homosexual encounter with a man. Not long after Kevin is pressured by the high schools bully Terrel, to attack Chiron. It makes no sense, as to why Kevin would do such a thing after an intense, intimate moment the two had just previously shared. This act is another reminder to Chiron that he cannot trust anyone, especially after the complete betrayal that Kevin has shown in front of countless other students. Chiron and Kevin shared an emotional connection that he has never experienced before. The scene ends as, Chiron walks in to class, as per usual does not say one word, and slams Terrel in the back of the head with a chair and is taken to Juvenile Detention. This is a defining moment as we see Chiron standing up for him self. However, it leaves the audience wanting more. Now as part two comes to a conclusion we see that Chiron had the opportunity to become his own and live up to his true identity. Yet, Not much has changed, but Because he was denied this as a young boy, as a teenager he still is

Furthermore, Sonny's individualism is a direct result of his unhappiness with conventional life. As a young man, Sonny is unable to get along with his father. He hates his home and school. His creative interest leads him to become isolated from his brother, who feels threatened by "his jazz-oriented life style and his continued attraction to Greenwich Village" (Albert 179). By the beginning of the story, Sonny has rejected his family and his home, constructing a new life as a musician and drug peddler in a new location foreign to the narrator.

Theorist Vsevolod Pudovkin claims that narrative films are mainly a “product of construction” and cautious compilations of “selections of images that have been shot” (Renée).