Over 70% of FULL TIME WORKING Americans say that they live paycheck to paycheck. Just think about that for a minute. These people work so hard and still struggle just to make ends meet. So what happens to people who live with even less than the full time workers? Even worse, what happens to their kids? The Florida Project posits some answers to both of these questions via the world of the Magic Castle, a “fleabag” hotel on its way to Disney World.
In theory, this type of life sounds like a nightmare right? The Florida Project sometimes suggests that may not be the case: consider Jancey (Valeria Cotto), Scooty (Christopher Rivera), and their ring leader Moonee (Brooklynn Prince). These three 8ish year old kids are on summer vacation with complete freedom? I mean, do you think Moonee’s mother Halley (Bria Vinaite), pretty much a child herself, has any ability to discipline her daughter? No chance in hell. So for Moonee and her friends, they can go in and out of the various hotels, restaurants, and houses as they please, since they can’t quite get to Disneyworld, which is just beyond their reach. The only person remotely looking out for them is the manager of the hotel Bobby (Willem Dafoe), a decent man who tries to do the best he can with the endless demands from various people who need him to do things for them.
Great directors transport you into their movie’s world. Think Pandora. The Matrix. Middle Earth. Sean Baker, the director, might be even better than those other directors, because he has to show us a real place that we have probably never seen: the dregs of the Disney hotel scene. A novice director would direct us to pity these people via just heartbreaking scene after heartbreaking scence, with some climactic scene involving an arrest just outside the gates of Disney world. However, Baker’s no novice. By showing this world through the prism of a child’s eyes, the director coaxes us into a world of uninhibited play and imagination. Abandoned houses are endless sources of games (hide and seek) or new toys (a sledgehammer, ha) for a kid right? They wouldn’t see it as a metaphor for their situation, they would dive in with enthusiasm! For Moonee and her posse, the summer is a blur of shared ice cream cones, spitting contests, and making new friends with the hotel across the 6 lane highway.
But then Baker starts layering on the other emotions. Wait, those cars on that highway drive really fast; why is that weird old man in the hotel hanging around the kids with no parent in sight? Where exactly does Halley get the money to pay Bobby? Most of these scenes are one offs, or take place in the background. For those paying attention, elements of fear, sadness, and the outside world threaten this Magic Castle that at times seems like their Magic Kingdom. At some point it became clear to me and it will become clear to you: this temporary “paradise” is untenable. So at that point, the scenes start to take on more fear and despair than is actually appearing on the screen: a lost member of the group here, a parental skirmish there. The emotions build and build to the big climax in the final 15 minutes, which hit me MUCH harder than I was expecting, and I believe will happen to you to.
Kudos to Sean Baker, Willem Dafoe, Bria Vinaite, and especially Brooklynn Prince. Like American Honey or (the current gold standard) Beasts of the Southern Wild, The Florida Project tells us a tale of the forgotten through the eyes of kids, unaware they are forgotten. The Florida Project gives me hope that despite circumstances, people can make the most out of what they have, and if we listen, smartly help, and work together, we can all eventually not just stop near Disneyworld and actually get there someday.