Cinemazlowski Double review: 'Loving' and 'Moonlight'

Nov 11, 2016

Next to the primal needs of eating and sleeping, there is perhaps no more universal need among humans than to feel loved. Two relatively new arthouse movies – "Moonlight" and "Loving" - offer complicated explorations of that desire, with both touching on the additional complications of being black in American society as well.              

"Loving" tells the true story of Richard and Mildred Loving, a white man and black woman who challenged the US laws against interracial marriage and won in the Supreme Court in 1967 after a nine-year battle for justice.

The movie opens in 1958, when the young interracial couple Mildred (Ruth Negga) and Richard Loving (Joel Edgerton) decide to get married when they find she is pregnant. They go to Washington, DC, because their home state of Virginia won't allow interracial marriage, but when they return, the local sheriff busts into their home in the dead of night and arrests them for violating state law.

Their local lawyer can only get them the right to move away as soon as possible, or split up, as a means of avoiding prison time. But when they return months later in order to have their baby delivered by Richard's midwife mother, they are caught again and this time they are told if they don't move out of state permanently or divorce, they will be thrown in prison for 25 years.

Ruth writes to then-Attorney General Robert Kennedy, a prominent civil rights leader, for help in their case, and he sends an ACLU lawyer named Bernie Cohen (Nick Kroll) to help them. Thus begins a series of maneuvers that take years to resolve in their favor.

"Loving" has a beautiful, understated tone with strong performances from the leads, whose performances playing rural Southerners are even more impressive considering Negga is actually Irish and Edgerton is Australian. While Negga offers a strong and dignified resolve throughout her performance, Edgerton is a marvel, changing his entire physical presence tremendously without apparent makeup through the way he walks, talks, and has his head shaved.

Writer-director Jeff Nichols ("Mud," "Midnight Special") continues an impressive string of character-driven films set in rural America, this time taking a complex historical subject and providing a strongly human, emotional touch. The one weakness of "Loving" is its occasional overly-deliberate pacing, which makes this a film that moves more than it entertains. Yet it proves that love conquers all – even the legal machinations of the nation's judicial system.

"Loving" is rated PG-13, even though it has literally zero foul language, doesn't show any sex or nudity, and its only implied violence or threat of it comes from the cops busting open the couple's door in the dead of night to initially arrest them. The film does show that the judges who ruled against the Lovings tried to apply the Bible against them, claiming that verses of Scripture stated that there was to be no intermingling of the races, but while the ACLU lawyer mildly smirks at these moments, the film makes it clear that the judges are wrong or overly harsh in their assessments and doesn't mock Judeo-Christian faith at all.

This is a film that should provide no offense to any viewer, but it certainly is a movie that kids or most teens would have no interest in anyway. While it's a very solid film, it's for adult interest or very serious-minded teens anyway.

Meanwhile, "Moonlight" offers an even more thoughtful and deliberate story that manages to make a personal quest for companionship thoroughly universal. Focused on the life of one young African-American boy named Chiron who is derided for being "soft" or "different" from the time he was a child, and key moments from his adolescence and adulthood that turn him into a deeply lonely and closeted gay man, "Moonlight" is driven less by plot than by writer-director Barry Jenkins' desire to make audiences become fully immersed and invested in Chiron's emotional state.

Using three impressive yet unknown actors to portray Chiron in three distinct segments breaking down important phases of the years from age 9 to 28, "Moonlight" opens on him being gently derided with the nickname "Little"  (Alex Hibbert). Little can't fit in with other roughhousing boys, and flees bullies one day by hiding in a dilapidated drug den controlled by a conflicted yet kindhearted dealer named Juan (Mahershala Ali).

Juan and his girlfriend Teresa (Jonelle Monae) take Little under their wing since it's obvious the boy has no father figure, and a mother (Naomie Harris) who is well-meaning but constantly tired from working overtime to survive. As Little gets older, his mother sinks into a drug addiction fueled by purchases made through Juan.

Little becomes known by his real name of Chiron in high school, where the bullying against him turns vastly more vicious and at the same time his lifelong friendship with a nicer boy named Kevin crosses the line into sexual contact. When a particularly tragic bullying incident drives Chiron to take a desperate measure of revenge, his life is shaped toward a decade of loneliness, in which he reinvents himself as a musclebound Atlanta-based drug dealer named Black. That loneliness is suddenly broken by two phone calls – one from Kevin at 28 (Andre Holland) and another from his now-rehabbing mother – which force him to decide the direction the rest of his life will take.

"Moonlight" doesn't rely on a linear plot to make its powerful points about how hard it is to grow up different – in this case, black and gay in a Miami ghetto where being the toughest dude on the block is the only way to survive. Jenkins has pulled off a powerful film that can make even straight white audience members feel sympathy for the aching pain that Chiron lives with, and root for him to overcome it.

From a Catholic Christian perspective, "Moonlight" provides some challenges. The movie has some foul language and crude slang about sex and also anti-homosexual slurs from bullies in the film's portrayal of Chiron's teen years. There is also a scene in which he hear moaning and comes across another male friend of his having sex with a girl, in a moment that is obvious about what's occurring, yet doesn't show any nudity. And when the two teenage males cross the line from friendship, they are shown passionately kissing for about a minute and sexual contact is implied; yet no other sex implied in the film and nothing actually seen in that regard either.

While "Moonlight" is about how a young black gay man became who he is, and viewers are expected to sympathize with him, it's not quite accurate to consider it propaganda for homosexuality. The movie is very specifically about the life path of Chiron himself, not a broader statement, and it really is about being an outsider and the pain of being alone in the world, which are universal fears and feelings.

Ultimately, it's a film that invites viewers to understand the Chirons of the world without advocating the lifestyle in a direct way. Thus, for viewers who are not easily offended by such a concept, it's a powerfully emotional film that fits the idea of loving the sinner in the case of homosexuality, if not the sin.

In a time when Hollywood is facing huge demands for a change to more minority-driven films, both "Moonlight" and "Loving" stand excellent chances for attaining Oscars and on an artistic level deserve them.

"Loving" should provide no moral challenges to viewers, while "Moonlight" is handled with enough discretion to not cause major problems for adult viewers who are aware of its themes.