I scored a freebie to this from the State Library, and cashed it at the Verona 8.45pm screening after having dinner at Time for Thai in Kensington. Parking is a bit painful there due to the lightrail construction. The bike is going well, though I need to get used to riding at higher revs. I understand the appeal of sports machines now. The theatre was about a quarter full. I was a bit surprised to see Joel Edgerton in the short for Loving looking like a roughed-up Val Kilmer. Unfortunately it felt like a movie that's entirely contained in its trailer.
Moonlight was produced by Brad Pitt, which perhaps means that he felt this to be a story that needed to be told, or Barry Jenkins is an exceptionally promising director. Mahershala Ali was brilliant in the role of Juan, and the three-way between him, his girl Teresa (an equally solid Janelle Monáe, though she had less to work with) and Little (Alex R. Hibbert, yes, excellent) was magic. Naomie Harris has the hard job of being an erratic, sometimes drug-addled mother. Unfortunately the succeeding acts don't measure up to the first, and narrative possibility evaporates as the time-honoured cliches of drugs, poverty and blackness are given a slight gloss by some decent and subtle acting. The acorn didn't fall so far from the tree (I hoped he'd morph into a nuclear physicist), thereby knackering the more personal parts of this tale of self-discovery. The whole thing is wonderfully slow, and some scenes so powerfully ordinary, which seems so daring in these strange times. I guess I wish there'd been more humour.