Did Moonlight Deserve to Win Best Picture?

In all honesty, this is a movie's movie. How?

Well....

Firstly,

The fact that this is an indie movie is already quite a giveaway, I mean to make a movie on little money, little production and little help, is no small feat. We have to understand that movies are the evolution of plays. And this movie certainly has all the makings of both a play and a movie.

But wait,

This isn't the ordinary Broadway play, no, that's La La Land.This?

This is straight up classic Shakespearean.

Why?

Well just like the old plays, the title cards state the first, second and third act. Now normally this is to allow for an intermission between every act but with movies there's hardly any need.

These title cards serve both as a transition and a time jump.

While all this is well and good one has to ask oneself the need, because what you're sacrificing is the story.

Don't get me wrong – the story line is there and we're supposed to be figuring it out. And a good movie is still supposed to sit with you the whole time.

But as many critics will point out, that type of movie will not necessarily get you the Best Picture all the way through.

What's the difference between story and story line?

Story is carried by the characters, story line is carried out by the interactions - small difference. But gaping in this case.

But just like any audience member, we love to watch struggle and we certainly get it from this movie, so there's definite high points for the Academy there, then there's the case for social commentary, which is always a relishing idea. Usually social commentary is for the times, but 12 Years A Slave was a rare case, it instead used the psycho-thriller angle for its slavery anecdote. In this one, though, it just uses the power of acting.

Because of this not everything is spelled out.

Now, there is good and bad to this.

The Good.

The good is that it makes everyone think. It makes everyone wonder about what the movie's message was about, what it was trying to say and the way it tried to convey it.

Now this movie's message is clear, the coming to terms with one's sexuality; simple. What it was trying to say was that his circumstances and the situations he was in affected his life greatly. And the way Moonlight tried to convey this was through the lines.

The Bad.

Now the bad here is that not everything between the lines comes through. Some things still need to be spelled out and the weight of your message needs a better weight and deliverer of it.

I'm not necessarily saying the acting is poor, I'm just saying that there are certain points where it just feels off. The writers might say that this was intentional, but I'm not sure.

Overall?

I guess overall, it didn't grab me as much as La La Land did, though maybe that's because the latter had a lower bar to reach coming into it, as I was willing to give it more of a chance since it was a musical. But it did do a great job on it's acting –as much as it could, at least. Mahershala Ali's character though, I have to say, was crudely shoved off, offscreen, I don't know if it was because he was doing Hidden Figures at the same time or they just fit him in for only Act One.

And I also must say it did a good job of doing the whole Boyhood thing over again; this time, without the life of the boy in question, which is a bit of a bitter pill to swallow, to say the least. It jars you, sure, but it leaves me thinking – was it good or was it bad?

For me, my thoughts going through this movie were that great, I get what they wanted to do, but at some parts it just fell off. I think the Academy made a mistake and La La Land deserved the award a tad more. But, at the same time, I think the Academy is just making up for sins from the 2016s, and just tried to convey that they aren't biased. Honestly this movie is a solid 7 – no more no less. And to continue the 2016 jokes, at least it's better than Batman V Superman.