The flicks
MOONLIGHT shines a beam of light on the story of young, black, male America, while in HIDDEN FIGURES the stars are doing it by the numbers, but never by the book
MOONLIGHT (M)
Director: Barry Jenkins ( Medicine for Melancholy) Starring: Mahershala Ali, Alex Hibbert, Ashton Sanders, Trevante Rhodes, Naomie Harris, Jharrel Jerome, Janelle Monáe. Rating: ****1/2 BE aware of who you are. Accept who you are. Then move on with your life. Otherwise, life will move right past you.
These are the universal insights communicated by Moonlight, a uniquely calm, affecting and wise coming-of-age drama that is undoubtedly one of the best movies of the year.
The story of Moonlight lyrically flows towards the viewer via three separate streams of consciousness, all of which slowly pool together to reflect the bittersweet truth of growing up as a young black male in America.
The first section of the film sets an unworldly, yet soulful tone that will continue to resonate with viewers throughout.
It is here, in a drug-infested Miami, that a bullied child named Chiron (Alex Hibbert), is standing by helplessly as the crack addiction of his mother (Naomie Harris) intensifies.
The only helping hand extended to Chiron — and one the shaken boy is understandably reluctant to accept — comes from a neighbourhood drug dealer, Juan (Mahershala Ali).
Nicknaming the child ‘Little’, Juan becomes an unlikely mentor and sincere protector of Chiron. There is an indescribable purity to the bond these two share that culminates in a moving and memorable sequence where Juan teaches his young charge to swim.
Just as Juan can sense there are sharks coming in the future that could encircle and eat
HIDDEN FIGURES (PG)
Director: Theodore Melfi ( St Vincent) Starring: Taraji P. Henson, Octavia Spencer, Janelle Monáe, Kevin Costner, Kirsten Dunst, Jim Parsons, Mahershala Ali. Rating: ***1/2 FEW inspirational true stories hit the screen in such infectiously upbeat fashion as Hidden Figures. Sure, it is predictable. Even in its highly dramatic moments, the feeling everything is going to turn out quite OK is never far away.
Nevertheless, the sheer energy of the cast of Hidden Figures and the pure curiosity provoked by its subject are simply too warm and inviting to resist. This is the untold story of a considerable number of black female mathematicians employed by NASA during the crucial pre-Apollo years of the US space program. The women were grouped together under the job title of ‘computers’, and carried out much of their work while segregated from their white colleagues at NASA’s Langley Research Centre.
The film focuses on three high-achievers on this remarkable team. Mary Jackson (played by singer Janelle Monae) aspires to be an aeronautical engineer on the Mercury capsule project. To realise her ambition, she must first beat an edict in the state of Virginia that bars black students from the only school offering qualifications in her chosen field.
Dorothy Vaughan (Octavia Spencer) is the unofficial supervisor of the group. Sensing they all could be made redundant by the development of sophisticated hardware under development at IBM, Dorothy learns a Chiron alive, he also knows he won’t be there to protect him.
At this point, the movie abruptly changes timeframes. Chiron (now played by Ashton Sanders) is in high school, and Juan’s instinctive worries have been proven correct.
There is no refuge anywhere to be found for Chiron, who is beginning to sense he might be gay. His fellow students have already ostracised him on account of his obvious sensitivity and quiet nature.
Some of them make their displeasure known with cruel intimidation, others with brutal violence.
In Moonlight’s ominously captivating, yet strangely uplifting final act, we finally learn complex coding language to become a pioneering programmer of the new machines.
Most prominent of all is Katherine Johnson (Taraji P. Henson), whose brilliance with advanced mathematical theorems and analytic geometry ultimately makes her an indispensable force for NASA as they seek to get ahead of the Russians in the space race.
The day-to-day indignities endured by the trio — such as having to use facilities marked ‘coloreds only’ all around their workplace — are depicted in a very straightforward, yet what will become of Chiron as an adult.
Everything he has experienced in his difficult past is about to impact on his future in ways that are best left unmentioned here.
The conflicting impulses of physical confidence and emotional insecurity coursing through Chiron as a grown man (where he is played by Trevante Rhodes) will either be the making or the breaking of him.
While Moonlight’s acting, cinematography, screenwriting and music score are all superb, it is the movie’s brave and beguiling use of silence throughout that ultimately speaks volumes for its undeniable power.
So much is left unsaid in Moonlight. But nothing is left unfelt. never confronting fashion.
Even the open racism displayed by highranking white colleagues (among whose number you will find well-known actors Kirsten Dunst and Jim Parsons) is not enough to dissuade these determined women from making the most of their incredible selfdeveloped gifts.
Thankfully, the ongoing insights and intercessions of no-nonsense Space Task Group director Al Harrison (a crucial supporting effort from Kevin Costner) clear the path ahead of most unnecessary obstacles.
What really impresses about this movie is how a fine balance is maintained between charting the personal journeys of Katherine, Mary and Dorothy, and the wider significance of their important contributions to the US space program.
While Hidden Figures conspicuously backs off on overloading its audience with anything too heavy — perhaps too much so on occasion — it still completes a vivid and uplifting telling of a story that thoroughly needed to be heard.