The Florida Project

I haven't been this deeply and emotionally moved by a film in quite some time. 

The effect of a movie upon the viewer depends on what the viewer brings to the film. If you have kids, or just truly love kids, The Florida Project will likely be your Kleenex film of the year.

The opening salvo features two kids, Moonee (Brooklynn Prince) and Scooty (Christopher Rivera), no more than seven years old each, sitting against a tropical Florida pink wall outside a run down Orlando motel, called "The Magical Castle". They are bored and waiting for something to happen. It is devastatingly simple, poetic and it pays off.

The fantasy of this being a fun summer for kids in the Orlando sun is offered in that opening, when Moonee and Scooty's friend, Dicky (Aiden Malik) comes running over to declare, "Freshies at the Future!" They run off, dangerously unaware of cars and the bustling traffic from the nearby route 192, arriving at Futureland Inn - another motel that looks like, once, held all the promise of the future being great for everyone.

They are up to no good, spitting on a car from the second floor and swearing. That childish silliness could be dismissed as "kids being kids" - maybe a little rough - until you hear them address Grandma Stacy, who's car they're hocking on. They curse her a blue streak that would make a sailor blush.

The world only gets darker from there.

You have to be patient and check your traditional understanding of storytelling at the door. Director/Writer Sean Baker is masterful in the way he allows the story to unfold, to be about something larger than wants or needs of characters, but instead about society, poverty and classism. There are shades of Gus Van Sant's work (think "Elephant") in long, uncut takes that both immerse you in and at times, terrify you of, this space.

Cinematographer, Alexis Zabe, makes the most of the lush, dangerous and still, somehow, cheerful feel of Orlando. There are signs of Disney everywhere - road signs, gift stores, iconic mouse ears, tourists - both being scammed and trying their best to scam. It's all here. 

Willem Dafoe is excellent - but in truth, he's among a chorus of beautiful, painfully raw human performances.

So what is the film about, if the characters have no clear goals, as drama 101 teaches us every film must have?

It's about Moonee and her mom, Halley (Bria Vanaite), getting by in abject poverty, living at the Magical Castle motel, with Disney's Magical Kingdom both achingly within reach and, at the same time, on a completely different planet. Baker leaves us to wrestle with the difficult questions of the haves and have nots. What are we willing to accept and what's not okay? What do we allow to be seen and what must be hidden?

 

The devastating closing sequence left me with absolute waterworks pouring from my eyes. I wish I had answers for the difficult questions that Baker brings up. For now, I'm just sincerely glad he did in the brilliant manner his film does.