The Florida Project
Directed by: Sean Baker
Written by: Sean Baker & Chris Bergoch
Starring: Brooklynn Prince, Bria Vinaite, Willem Dafoe, Valeria Cotto, Christopher Rivera, Mela Murder, Josie Olivo, Aiden Malik, Caleb Landry Jones, Sandy Kane, Macon Blair, Carl Bradfield
Drama - 115 min Reviewed by Charlie Juhl on 12 Oct 2017
Written by: Sean Baker & Chris Bergoch
Starring: Brooklynn Prince, Bria Vinaite, Willem Dafoe, Valeria Cotto, Christopher Rivera, Mela Murder, Josie Olivo, Aiden Malik, Caleb Landry Jones, Sandy Kane, Macon Blair, Carl Bradfield
Drama - 115 min Reviewed by Charlie Juhl on 12 Oct 2017
Writer/director Sean Baker is making his name off of realism. His films follow fictional characters but they may as well be real people; most of the actors playing them are. In 2015’s Tangerine, one of that year's best films, Baker infamously shot the entire thing on an iPhone 5s and hired transgender actresses Mya Taylor and Kitana Kiki Rodriguez to play the leads. He filmed on the real Los Angeles streets where transgender sex workers hang out and live their lives. In The Florida Project, Baker films at an actual Kissimmee, Florida hotel - no names are changed. Some of his lead actors live in this hotel and others he found off of Instagram. Once again turning his camera on people living hand-to-mouth in society’s margins, the in your face realism turns some people off who are looking for fantasy and escape in the movie theater away from life’s problems. Baker isn’t here to let you relax. These people live in our world and he’s going to make sure you experience them.
The Florida Project is a companion piece to 2014’s 99 Homes. There, people forcefully evicted from their homes end up at low-end hotels with whatever household items fit in their car. These hotels turn into long-term residences. Where 99 Homes gives us a slice of that on-the-fly hotel lifestyle, The Florida Project spends all of its time there. And look at the location. The bright-purple painted Magic Castle Inn is very close to the real Magic Kingdom, but it might as well be an international flight away. While tourists breeze through town dropping thousands of dollars on ‘cut the line’ wristbands, luxury villas, and drunken rounds of golf, the locals spend their days trying to scrape together the $38 per night it takes to stay at the Magic Castle Inn.
The Florida Project is a companion piece to 2014’s 99 Homes. There, people forcefully evicted from their homes end up at low-end hotels with whatever household items fit in their car. These hotels turn into long-term residences. Where 99 Homes gives us a slice of that on-the-fly hotel lifestyle, The Florida Project spends all of its time there. And look at the location. The bright-purple painted Magic Castle Inn is very close to the real Magic Kingdom, but it might as well be an international flight away. While tourists breeze through town dropping thousands of dollars on ‘cut the line’ wristbands, luxury villas, and drunken rounds of golf, the locals spend their days trying to scrape together the $38 per night it takes to stay at the Magic Castle Inn.
The Florida Project was Walt Disney’s working title while he bought up Orlando land on the cheap before news of his Disney empire expansion to the East Coast leaked out. Sean Baker’s Florida Project is an anti-Disney World. It is a gritty and tragic portrait of childhood. However, it is only tragic to the movie audience. To six year-old Moonee (Brooklynn Prince), the Magic Castle is an enchanted place full of intriguing neighbors and fun adventures with her mom. But we see Moonee’s future and know full well it is not full of magic carpets and cotton candy. If Moonee turns out like her mother, Halley (Bria Vinaite), she will be prematurely sexual, experience an early pregnancy, and repeat the cycle of scheming ways to make the next buck.
Baker’s camera hangs back to watch the hotel as an entire set; he rarely breaks it into separate parts. In what seems like an impossible shot, he watches four sprinting kids, who appear to own the outside like post-apocalyptic scavengers, run from the parking lot, up flights of stairs, down walkways, all the way to the other end of the place in one unbroken sequence. Directing kids is well known to lead filmmakers to an early grave; therefore, just thinking about how he must have had to explain to them each and every step to take, where to pause, where to scream, and where to run makes my head hurt.
The hotel, next door to a half dozen others just like it with ironic names such as Future Land, and all of them forming a depressing strip mall atmosphere, borders a helipad whisking greenback flaunting tourists to aerial views of the Central Florida spectacle. The persistent, deafening whir of the rotors makes The Magic Castle feel like a battleground in a war zone. When the film hits its inevitable and emotional climax, the helicopters are right there to make everything feel that much more visceral and immediate.
Bria Vinaite is so natural in her role as a single mom in her early 20s, she appears not to be acting at all. Having no interest in even part-time employment, Halley’s few options of scoring rent money start drying up one-by-one forcing her to turn to more risky and illegal options. Willem Dafoe (The Great Wall) as the Magic Castle’s manager, Bobby, keeps his eye on Halley and Moonee. Bobby has his eye on the whole operation alternating between stern and forgiving father personas, but he recognizes the warning signs before anyone. Bobby knows his clientele perhaps better than they know themselves. He knows where they’re coming from and the harsh truth they’re most likely never going to reestablish a foothold on the next rung of the economic ladder. They are here to stay and struggle.
Sean Baker said he wanted to make a Little Rascals movie. The Rascals had the Great Depression as their backdrop. The Florida Project has a pack of rascals and they have the non-recovery from 2008’s Great Recession to contend with. At times, I wanted to reach through the screen and talk some sense into Halley. She has choices whether she realizes it or not. It’s the rare film that riles you up so much you want to hop in there and start cleaning up their mess. The caution lights are flashing. Halley and Moonee are coming to an abrupt end although Moonee never sees it coming because six year-olds only see the present and Halley lacks the will to do anything about it. You may feel exhausted at the end. I can see why folks inexperienced with this type of vérité style may walk out disappointed. They never escaped. Sure, they forgot their problems for two hours, but they just took on and will carry home someone else’s problems much heavier than theirs.
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