Roger Ebert once remarked that the power of movies was derived from their ability to act as empathy machines. A great movie allows the
viewer to experience different points of view, different people on
different continents and in different periods of time. This movie is a
great illustration of that insight. I knew nothing of this world and now I feel like I have spent several hours ensconced in it.
Writer/Director Sean Baker has
been making movies for a good twenty years now, but he made headlines
big enough to garner my attention a few years ago when he shot an
entire movie on an iPhone. That movie was “Tangerine” and to my delight it was a real movie that contained a gimmick and not the
other way around. More notably, “Tangerine” was about something I
had never seen a movie about: a romantic rivalry between transvestite
prostitutes with a subplot about a homosexual immigrant Armenian
married-with-children taxi driver that frequented the services of the
streetwalkers. Again, as Roger Ebert remarked again, to judge a movie
objectively you must divorce yourself from the idea that a movie’s
worth is derived from what it is about. You must judge the movie
based on how it is about how it is about. The plot of “Tangerine”
contains many choices and controversies that most of us would find
crazy and petty. However, the characters in the story took the
problems seriously and the movie took the characters seriously. I did
not agree with what was going on but I understood it and in this way
the movie must be judged as a good movie.
“The Florida Project” asks the same leap of the audience, to
understand various people on the edge of society that are under
stress and not dealing with it in constructive ways. What
differentiates “The Florida Project” from “Tangerine” though
is that it contains at least one great person among the throng of
misfits and sublime vignettes of genuine beauty.
The story concerns the very free range childhood of Moonee (played by
Brooklyn Prince) one summer in the cheap motel outskirts of
Disneyworld, Florida. For all intents and purposes, Moonee and her
mother Halley (played by Bria Vinai) are one step from being
homeless. They live week to week in the cheapest of motels called
“The Magic Kingdom”. The motel, painted bright pink, is home to
those just visiting and those on the outskirts of society. It
attracts a certain crowd of people that it takes a large degree of
patience to work with. The hotel manager, Bobby, not only takes care of
the motel, he in large part takes care of the people who live there.
And especially, he takes care of the kids of the not-so-responsible
adults that find themselves in such a place. A very interesting and
sometimes heartbreaking part of Bobby’s job is the line he draws
between people who are invited to stay at the hotel and those who are
so far out of the mainstream that they become disinvited.
The sense of place that Sean Baker creates is indelible. If you
didn’t know how a cheap motel works and the various sorts of people
that frequent there you will have a good idea by the end of this
movie. Our guide is Moonee a rambunctious six or seven year old as
she finds and becomes best friends with another girl who just moved
into the motel across the street, the Purple Castle. They explore the
main strip, conspire to procure free ice cream, and generally annoy Bobby. At
times I was taken out of the movie by just contemplating how natural is Brooklyn Prince’s performance. I’m not sure
what spell Sean Baker cast over the child but he is getting scenes
and reactions out of Moonee that seem impossible when one considers
the difficulties of working with children.
The enabler of Moonee’s carefree sometimes dangerous childhood is
her mother Halley. Moonee’s father is not around nor does Halley
bother mentioning him during this movie. Halley is a bit of a free
range child as well and the movie’s plot arc has more to do with
Halley’s decline in prospects than any substantial change in
Moonee. Sean Baker’s treatment of Halley says a lot about his great
compassion for his characters. Baker is not defending Halley’s
actions, but he does not condemn her unnecessarily as well.
Nevertheless when child protective services shows up at the end, the
audience understands why they have come and they understand why
Moonee and Halley probably should be broken up. As Moonee’s
childhood is a happy one and her mother obviously loves her, the
actions of the government have more to do with a question of culture
than a pattern of abuse. It fairly reminds me of the reasons given by past governments to separate children from indigenous tribal
people and put them in government run orphanages and schools. That is, they simply believed the children would be better off. This is a good
movie to have an interesting conversation with the people you have
seen it with. “The Florida Project” is one of the best movies of
2017.
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