Movie Review: The Florida Project

The Florida Project **** ½ / *****

Directed by: Sean Baker.

Written by: Sean Baker & Chris Bergoch.

Starring: Willem Dafoe (Bobby), Brooklynn Prince (Moonee), Valeria Cotto (Jancey), Bria Vinaite (Halley), Christopher Rivera (Scooty), Caleb Landry Jones (Jack), Macon Blair (Tourist John), Karren Karagulian (Narek), Sandy Kane (Gloria).

 

There is a lot to love about Sean Baker’s The Florida Project – a beautiful, honest slice-of-life drama set beside the happiest place on earth in Florida – but perhaps none more than the best child performance I have seen in years by young Brooklynn Prince. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a more natural performance by a child this young – she has to be 6 or 7 at the oldest – she never hits a false note. It’s a performance full of life – full of youthful exuberance that perfectly captures that age. The movie itself gives that performance a hint of sadness – not because of anything overt that Prince does, but just because at some point, we realize what the future most likely holds for Prince’s character Moonee. Now, she is innocent, and getting into the type of trouble that all kids that age get into – where their parents still get mad at them, but do so while smiling on the inside, because it’s not that bad. She spits on a car with her friends for instance – or puts a dead fish in the pool to “try and bring it back to life”. How do you not smile at that?

 

I realize that the first paragraph of this review perhaps makes The Florida Project sound like a feel good, Hollywood tearjerker, coming of age story – something like Stand By Me for instance, but that’s not really what this movie is. The movie is largely plotless, and takes place entirely in and around The Magic Castle, a rundown motel close to Disney Land in Florida, but is not a place you would stay if you had the money to go to Disney Land (unless, as in one very funny scene, you made a mistake with the online reservation). It’s summer vacation, and Moonee lives in one of the rooms with her mother, Halley (Bria Vinaite) – who is in her early 20s, has no job, and whoever Moonee’s father was, is no longer around. Halley gets buy, week-to-week, on the rent by conducting various scams – like buying wholesale perfume, and selling it to tourists at the richer hotels in the area. Moonee basically spends her days getting into mischief with her pals Scooty (Christopher Rivera) and Jancey (Valeria Cotto) – never quite understanding how close to being homeless she is, or how desperate her mother gets. The other major character in the film is Bobby (Willem Dafoe) – the motel manager, who isn’t what you expect him to be. Halley and Moonee are not the first family unit he’s seen in this situation – and they won’t be the last – and yet, he hasn’t grown cold or cynical. He really does care about them in his gruff one. The movie observes these various characters – and those who come in contact with them – over the course of a few weeks during the summer.

 

The Florida Project is a smart movie by co-writer/director Sean Baker, who follows-up his acclaimed breakthrough film Tangerine, about two transgender prostitutes in L.A., which he shot on an iPhone, with this film, shot on 35MM film. This film is bolder visually – and certainly brighter – than Tangerine, and yet it has the same humanistic approach to the storytelling. This one is even less driven by plot than Tangerine was – that one had a few storylines running throughout. This one is an even more closely observed film that really does understand these various characters, and their existence. It delves into the kind of lives that we don’t often see in movies – and rush by in real life. It also nails the feeling of what it’s like to be in Florida (in my limited experience anyway) – you feel the heat coming off everything, you can also feel the sadness underneath a lot of the happier facades in the film. At the heart, there are the great performances – by Prince, Dafoe and Vinaite – two movies, and a pro-, doing some of the very best work of his long career. The movie ends, probably as it must – with a moment that is both sad, yet perhaps somehow optimistic. This is one of the great films of the year – it’s not to be missed.