Weighing the film with these heaviest of laurels only serves to put an albatross around its neck, dashing expectations along the way and undermining its beauty in another way. However, the truth is that Moonlight is good but not THAT good. To say that Academy voters gave Moonlight the Best Picture trophy due to white guilt or a self-back-patting PR-move truly undermines a beautifully acted and shot achievement in filmmaking. Given the backlash surrounding the 'Oscars So White' brouhaha, however (in which the Motion Picture Academy of Arts & Sciences barely put forth any African-American nominees), this independent gem improbably claimed the year's top prize. Truly, in any other year or awards cycle, this film might have found itself in the also-ran category. In this R-rated Oscar winner, director Barry Jenkins chronicles the childhood, adolescence and burgeoning adulthood of a young, African-American, gay man growing up in a rough neighborhood of Miami. As tender as it is tough as it is true, three-tiered coming-of-age drama Moonlight is a near-master class character study that almost reaches the vaunted heights of its A+ reputation.
