The Florida Project

Dir: Sean Baker

2017

*****

Once again, Sean Baker has produced a film that says so much by submerging the audience into a way of life they aren’t necessarily aware of. It is a fairy-tale of harsh reality. The Florida Project was the initial name for Walt Disney World and the film is set just outside of the famous theme park in a cheap motel called ‘The Magic Kingdom’. Six-year-old Moonee lives with her rebellious daughter in a small room and spends her summers playing with Scooty and Dicky – two boys also living in the motel. The kids play in and around the motel, getting into trouble and interfering with the motel’s manager. The film shows the neglect of the children but also the harsh reality of living in the shadow of what is often referred to as the happiest place in the world. Moonee’s mother, played by first time actress Bria Vinaite is an attractive but lazy and ferocious character who barely cares for her child but clearly loves her very much. Any sympathy for her situation is washed away by her toxic attitude and hostility when she doesn’t get her way – or more to the point, when people don’t give her what she wants. She’s clearly come from a tough childhood herself but still doesn’t make life easier for herself, which makes the film a frustrating watch at times. Moonee (played by the adorable Brooklynn Prince) is a very sweet and innocent child at heart but her behaviour and language is often shocking and undesirable. The film makes no excuses and tells it largely how it is for some, although most of the motel’s residents are working, struggling but looking after their kids. Moonee’s mother comes and goes within the film, as does the motel’s manager (played by the excellent Willem Dafoe), it is Moonee who the audience follows. As she plays on the outskirts of the theme park we see the shadow of a child, in the shadow of an ideal. Moonee plays in Disney’s now derelict condos instead of going to The Haunted Mansion, she creeps up on cows in a nearby field instead of going to Disney’s Animal Kingdom and so on. She and her friends prey on tourists to pay for ice-cream with the three of them often sharing a cone. They get up to no good but there is very much an innocents to their games. The relationship between Moonee and her mother is fascinating as it is hard to see where the child stops and the adult begins. The film is deeply disturbing at times but it is incredibly subtle that it never becomes gratuitous. The reality of the situation is bleak but the backdrop is blue sky and sunshine. The kid’s adventures turn into wonderful little moments, the film soon feels like a fairy-tale set in reality. When reality starts to push back towards the end of the film, the kids realise they need to reclaim some fantasy for themselves, leading to one of my favorite endings to a film of all time. The whole film is gloriously filmed with rich colour and epic composition but somehow, in the last few minutes, Sean Baker’s deflection back into guerrilla-style film-making provides the real fantasy, even though it’s the most realistic the film ever looks. How they didn’t get sued by Disney is beyond me. How Sean Baker has crafted a fantasy film out of a simplistic look at real life on the breadline also puzzles me, but this is what he has achieved and it is glorious. Bria Vinaite is brilliant in her debut and Willem Dafoe is as great as he always is but Brooklynn Prince is the film’s real star. She is clearly a mischief and was cast accordingly but her switch to rebellious, to concerned, to crying convincingly on command was extraordinary. She is a star in the making. I can see her, Vinaite and Sean Baker going far – and not before time in the case of Baker.