I do NOT buy his adult portrayal
NO NO NO. His personality type would never evolve into a man like that. This had nothing to do with his sexuality rather the evolution was unrealistic.. extremely.
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MovieChat Forums > Moonlight (2016) Discussion > I do NOT buy his adult portrayal
I agree with you! At first I didnt even know if it was him.( he emulated the man Bleu, Teresas boyfriend) I didnt buy it at all. It was like watching a different film. The casting was not on point in the 3rd phase of his life. I credit both the adult actors, but they were not right for the transition into adulthood.
Also, not to nitpick, but the diner scene with the music on the jukebox made me, well, just cringe. I was like, what the hell am I watching, lol?
I had trouble buying it too. His confidence level as an adult seemed like a completely different person, and a complete 180 from the bullied teen/child who always kept his head down and never felt like he belonged. The performance was good, I just didn't completely buy the choice of personality.
And not even that much time passes from his teen years. Only 10 or so years (according to grown up Kevin).
I heard one explanation for his adult personality as being 'a front'. He's just pretending to act tough and hard and confident. And his weightlifting is an exterior armor to protect his fragile self. I guess I can kind of see what they're saying. But I still think someone bullied, neglected and beaten (and jailed) would not have that self-assurance and smoothness we saw in adult Chiron. He moved and talked like the most confident All-Star sports athlete making millions of dollars (coincidentally, the actor playing him was an athlete).
Definitely agree with what you said about his muscularity being a front, here's a clip where Barry Jenkins talks about this in an interview - https://youtu.be/R7_GimSKeiw?t=279. He goes on to say he wanted the audience to initially be taken aback by how different Black is from Little/Chiron but after some time the audience can still see the little, scared kid in him.
I didn't see Chiron as being very "self-assure and smooth", quite the opposite actually. I remember one little scene where him and that younger drug dealer are in his apartment and he tries to play a joke on the younger guy when the younger guy is counting the money but the joke totally did not work, the younger guy did not realize it was a joke and did not find it funny at all. Someone who was "self-assure and smooth" would have been able to pull off that joke but someone who lacked confidence wouldn't have. Another scene at the end when he confides to Kevin that he hasn't let another person touch him since their moment together on the beach showed this still existent vulnerability that building up all the muscles and adding these layers of armour were trying to hide.
Thanks for the clip. And good points with those above examples. I can see what Barry Jenkins was going for a little better now
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