Reel-View Ratings: The Bigger The Beard, The Better The Movie

AQUARIUS

An elderly woman, Clara (Sonia Braga), is the last, lonely holdout in her apartment building against a developer that wants to raze the complex. She refuses to leave her memories and comfortable home, which displeases just about everyone else. It’s a familiar premise with precisely the kind of character you want to root for: a kindly older woman who wants to be independent. But her character is really all this film is. Clara’s portrait is warm and lively but does not mesh well with her dilemma, which comes off as incidental rather than essential. The director’s sympathies to her plight are obvious and dull. Opens Nov. 11 at Kahala Theatre

LOVING

It is easy to forget that interracial marriage was illegal in 24 states before Loving v. Virginia in 1967 (only 49 years ago), before a white man (Joel Edgerton) loved a black woman (Ruth Negga), and loved her enough to take the case all the way to the Supreme Court. The quiet, un-dramatic film tries to shake off the usual biopic histrionics, presenting the Lovings as a humble, tender couple that only wanted to live in their native Virginia without harm. The story is beautiful, but its presentation veers a little too placid at times, with a distinct lack of emotion at key points.Opens Nov. 11 in wide release

MOONLIGHT

A young black boy, Chiron, struggles to carve out a niche for himself in a world that doesn’t accept him — for his sexuality, for his quiet nature, for everything that he is. Chiron finds an accepting father figure in the man who is his mother’s crack dealer; he finds a kind of love in another man who also betrays him. The film follows the boy, as he becomes a man, through three periods in his life. The narrative is powerful, speaking in image more than words, in implication as much as proclamation. It does not fall prey to clich . The question of what it means to be a black man in America is shaken. Opens Nov. 11 at Kahala Theatre