Well, I know that I always leave it late to catch movies but I excelled this time, with catching the very last showing on the very last day at Cinema Nova. I knew that this won an Academy Award for Best Picture, but the trailer left me cold. Frankly, I knew very little about the film before seeing it.
I didn’t realize that it was a coming of age story, set in Miami but not Miami as I think of it. There’s not a white person to be seen in this Miami, a place of poverty and drug addiction. I didn’t realize that it involved a gay main character, who even before he knew what the term meant, asked ‘Am I a faggot?’. The movie is told in three parts, as Chiron grows up from a neglected, bullied child to a hesitant, searching teenager, and then a muscle-bound, intimidating ex-prisoner drug dealer.
I didn’t find it particularly easy to watch with jerky, handheld camera shots, and very-difficult-to-understand dialogue. But it was beautifully filmed, and it told a story that stays with you.
But if it’s no longer showing at the Nova, you know it’s really over and time to look for the DVD.
My rating: 4.5
The Resident Judge of Port Phillip 