The Florida Project

The Florida Project

Starring Brooklynn Prince, Bria Vinaite, Willem Dafoe, Valeria Cotto

Directed by Sean Baker

The Story:
Moonee (Brooklynn Prince) is a six-year-old girl living in a motel near Disney World with her mother Halley (Bria Vinaite).  During the day, she embarks on quirky adventures with her friends Scooty (Christopher Rivera) and Jancey (Valeria Cotto) that often result in mischief and annoying the gruff but lovable motel manager Bobby Hicks (Willem Dafoe).  As she lives a carefree youthful life, Halley's life slowly spirals out of control as she struggles to make ends meet, as we encounter the several lives of lower class people living in a colorful motel near the happiest place on earth.

The Synopsis:
"The Florida Project" is, in every instance, a polar opposite film.  While we have settings of gaudy motels and tourist traps colored in vibrant purples, oranges, and blues, there's a vast community of people who reside there who are better painted red - as in living in the red, hand-to-mouth, with little to show to their name.  There's a gang of rascally kids who enjoy their environment by spitting on cars, turning off the lights, and setting abandoned buildings on fire, while there's their families who don't know the definition of the word "carefree."  There's a motel manager who often yells at his patrons and scolds the unruly kids, but also is strongly protective and as lovable as they come.  It's an insane attempt to tell personal stories in an episodic way that doesn't want to come off as a television miniseries, and somehow accomplishes all that and more - the film is an unflinching look at life for the lower class citizens living near the biggest tourist attractions in America, showing their lives in a deeply humanistic way that doesn't glamorize their lives and make it look like something you would see driving to Disney World.

At the center of the film is young Moonee, a six-year-old girl who loves mischief and getting into trouble, but not because she's purposefully unruly or mean - it's all she knows.  She picks up the negative aspects of her life from her mother, giving her a voice well above her 10-year-old frame and making her more adult than she should be, without loosing her youthful innocence.  We experience the world through her eyes (and, mostly, at her level, where the camera shows us the world from a smaller view), and she sees the world in living color: the motel she lives in is colored a bright purple, she walks past a store colored orange, the ice cream shop she frequents is shaped like an ice cream cone, and she walks by a souvenir shop with a giant wizard in the front.  On the outside, it's all rainbows and sunshine, set to bring the tourists in before or after they spend their time at Disney World.  It's a stark contrast to the darkness that the people face who are trapped there everyday in a town that's great to visit, but terrible to live in.

While the kids have a carefree summer, their parents struggle under the weight of their own poverty.  Moonee and Scooty have single-parent homes, while Jancey is raised by her grandmother because her own mother left them.  It's interesting to see that these kids are raised by their mothers or grandmothers - there's not a man in the mix, which is unfortunately all-too-common in society today.  Moonee's mother can't hold down a job and resides to selling perfume to tourists at better Orlando hotels, and even resorting to prostitution to simply make ends meet.  Scooty's mother is a struggling waitress who sneaks free food for Moonee and her mother, and Jancey's grandmother has enough on her plate dealing with her to even hold down a job.  When you see this same world through their eyes, it's a bleak outcome with little to no hope of happiness.

At the heart of the motel is the manager, Bobby.  Pretty much the only male presence in the film, he serves as manager, father-figure, disciplinarian, and protector.  He has a job to do and Moonee's hijinks threaten his bottom line, but even as he scolds her and her mother, he is deeply protective of them - as well as the other tenants - in a deeply fatherly way.  When he encounters a strange man talking to the group of kids, he immediately jumps into action and removes the threat from the premises.  He spends almost all of his time at the motel trying to make it look better and more attractive to passers-by, while also maintaining a close relationship with his long-term lodgers.  He's not a superhero or a glamorous Hollywood type, but the Joe-everyman who you meet on a daily basis.

What makes this film work so much is the tremendous acting from top to bottom.  As the only recognizable name, Willem Dafoe dominates as Bobby, performing with a simplistic elegance that makes him completely relatable and understood, playing the gruff owner with a heart of gold.  It's no surprise he's been recognized by thirty-six different awards ceremonies, receiving numerous nominations for his performance (earning the coveted nominations for the Golden Globes, Screen Actors Guild, and Academy Awards), because this is by far one of his best performances in his stellar career.

Then there's Halley, played by Bria Vinaite, who was discovered by director Sean Baker on Instagram.  She is living the lower class life, raising Moonee on her own, struggling to make ends meet.  She sells perfume to wealthy tourists, collects welfare, and scraps different odds and ends to just provide food for the two of them.  When the money bleeds dry, she resorts to prostituting herself to make money, keeping Moonee in the bathroom while she "works."  Generally, this type of character is despised by the viewers as someone who only looks out for themselves, but here, Vinaite portrays Halley as a self-sacrificing woman who will do anything for her child - even resorting to selling her body - just to give her a better life.  While she's not the typical "good mother," she's the best mother Moonee could ever ask for, and it's through her no-nonsense example where Moonee gains her knowledge beyond her years, and you can't help but feel compassion for her.

Then there's the young starlet Brookynn Prince, who plays Moonee.  This girl is rambunctious and rebellious, but not in a negative way.  She's just a carefree child who loves having fun in her own way, with her best friends who also live in the same complex.  It's a child's dream come true, experiencing a different adventure everyday.  For me, it hearkens back to my own childhood with my friends who lived next door to me - we would go out, ride our bikes, explore the woods, and have our own adventures.  Here, Moonee and her friends explore the motel, partake in ice cream down the street, and spend time in abandoned apartment complexes.  She has a potty mouth to her, but it's in an innocent way because it's all she knows, having been raised by her streetwise mother.  She is wise beyond her years, and holds a tough exterior, serving as the leader of her small group.  Yet, there's a particular scene when the walls break down, and you immediately remember you're not dealing with a woman in her twenties, but a kid, and Prince manages to play both extremes to perfection.

Ultimately, what makes "The Florida Project" so memorable isn't some over-the-top premise, extreme situation, or out-of-this-world twist, but just the uncompromising look at life for those living well below the poverty line, and the children who are too innocent to see the depression around them.

The Summary:
Contrasting the fairy tale story of Disney World with the harsh realities of poverty, "The Florida Project" serves as a stark contrast of life through the eyes of struggling single-parent homes and the carefree innocence of their children, and the manager who holds the pieces together.

The Score: A+