Much like the feral children of the Magic Castle – the tacky, rundown Orlando motel where we lay our scene not the Disney Cinderella castle - my early childhood was one of constant flux. Part of that was built into the whimsy of being a kid. A new neighbor would become your best friend with a simple invitation to play outside then become a perfect stranger by the week's end. But to me there was also the added complication of living the semi-nomadic lifestyle. Every few years my parents would move and after a day or two of travel I'd be ricocheting off the walls of a brand new place, ready and willing to meet my new potential besties.
It was on that level that I deeply felt for and connected with Moonee (Prince), the troublemaking Floridian youngster that breathes life into the neons, pastels and verdant greens of The Florida Project. She, along with her friends Jancey (Cotto), Scooty (Rivera) and Dicky (Malik) playfully terrorize the denizens of Orlando's crusty motel rooms and gravelly parking lots to stave off the boredom and the heat. Courting mischief at every turn, the rag-tag group of friends runs wild; finding excitement in everything from pasture fields to abandoned housing projects to the greens just outside the Disney World theme park where on a clear night, you can see the nightly fireworks.
Yet as the children have their delirious fun, the complex, dangerous and cruel world of adulthood lays always at the periphery, threatening their unending summertime fun. Moonee's mom Halley (Vinaite), hardly more mature than her six-year-old, takes the brunt of every consequence of systemic, individual and moral poverty. The lack of education, lack of mobility, lack of future prospects braces uneasily against Halley's worse instincts. She keeps the authorities at bay with flagrantly desperate hustles yet without really trying, she only makes her situation and thus Moonnee's situation much worse.
The Florida Project was once the name of Walt Disney's top secret land development initiative that would eventually become Disney World, Orlando. One can't help but feel the title is a slight on the part of director Sean Baker whose previous films have found beauty in unexpected places. And here there is a lot of beauty but there's also a lot of ugliness in what many would call the closest thing to paradise on earth. Gross neglect and heartrending degradation takes place just outside the manufactured fun and fairy-tale street signs of the infamous park. Those in need of vacation come and go as they please, with little knowledge of their complicity in what is captured for the screen.
Yet despite all this, what makes The Florida Project truly special is its light touch. It stops short of judging its characters - or worse still moralizing what could have amounted to poverty porn and giving its characters socio-political halos to wear. Much like Bobby (Dafoe), the unappreciated manager of the Magic Castle, we observe them through lenses of world-weary empathy. A beaten down but still ticking humanism that has learned to accept some things as they are yet still on a happy search of that innate goodness from within. A quiet grace, a foul-mouthed optimism, the remnants of arrested development grinded down by the realities of life; in short we see in this movie, real, actual people.
All in all, The Florida Project is incontrovertible proof that Sean Baker is the Maxim Gorky of our time - an exemplary writer and gifted visual director with an eye and soul for great human dramas. Additionally the movie provides an unforgettable showcase for debut actresses Brooklynn Prince and Bria Vinaite and a career highlight for the indelible Willem Dafoe who stops just short of being a thankless bargain bin Gabriel and somehow pulls it off gracefully. Finally, while some may perish the thought of watching a movie like this in general and may not be as receptive to the overall message as myself, the accuracy with which The Florida Project portrays the innocence of childhood is powerful enough for everyone to watch at least once.
It was on that level that I deeply felt for and connected with Moonee (Prince), the troublemaking Floridian youngster that breathes life into the neons, pastels and verdant greens of The Florida Project. She, along with her friends Jancey (Cotto), Scooty (Rivera) and Dicky (Malik) playfully terrorize the denizens of Orlando's crusty motel rooms and gravelly parking lots to stave off the boredom and the heat. Courting mischief at every turn, the rag-tag group of friends runs wild; finding excitement in everything from pasture fields to abandoned housing projects to the greens just outside the Disney World theme park where on a clear night, you can see the nightly fireworks.
Yet as the children have their delirious fun, the complex, dangerous and cruel world of adulthood lays always at the periphery, threatening their unending summertime fun. Moonee's mom Halley (Vinaite), hardly more mature than her six-year-old, takes the brunt of every consequence of systemic, individual and moral poverty. The lack of education, lack of mobility, lack of future prospects braces uneasily against Halley's worse instincts. She keeps the authorities at bay with flagrantly desperate hustles yet without really trying, she only makes her situation and thus Moonnee's situation much worse.
The Florida Project was once the name of Walt Disney's top secret land development initiative that would eventually become Disney World, Orlando. One can't help but feel the title is a slight on the part of director Sean Baker whose previous films have found beauty in unexpected places. And here there is a lot of beauty but there's also a lot of ugliness in what many would call the closest thing to paradise on earth. Gross neglect and heartrending degradation takes place just outside the manufactured fun and fairy-tale street signs of the infamous park. Those in need of vacation come and go as they please, with little knowledge of their complicity in what is captured for the screen.
Yet despite all this, what makes The Florida Project truly special is its light touch. It stops short of judging its characters - or worse still moralizing what could have amounted to poverty porn and giving its characters socio-political halos to wear. Much like Bobby (Dafoe), the unappreciated manager of the Magic Castle, we observe them through lenses of world-weary empathy. A beaten down but still ticking humanism that has learned to accept some things as they are yet still on a happy search of that innate goodness from within. A quiet grace, a foul-mouthed optimism, the remnants of arrested development grinded down by the realities of life; in short we see in this movie, real, actual people.
All in all, The Florida Project is incontrovertible proof that Sean Baker is the Maxim Gorky of our time - an exemplary writer and gifted visual director with an eye and soul for great human dramas. Additionally the movie provides an unforgettable showcase for debut actresses Brooklynn Prince and Bria Vinaite and a career highlight for the indelible Willem Dafoe who stops just short of being a thankless bargain bin Gabriel and somehow pulls it off gracefully. Finally, while some may perish the thought of watching a movie like this in general and may not be as receptive to the overall message as myself, the accuracy with which The Florida Project portrays the innocence of childhood is powerful enough for everyone to watch at least once.