The Florida Project (2017)

With the one-two punch of Tangerine and The Florida Project, director/writer Sean Baker’s career is following the ideal trajectory that critics (unfairly) project for talented artists. Tangerine, which Baker shot on an iPhone, was an incredibly promising, heartfelt story of a transgender prostitute on Christmas Eve. It broke my heart. His follow up, The Florida Project, which observes the residents and staff of a crumbling motel on the outskirts of Orlando, similarly concerns itself with marginalized voices rarely acknowledged by Hollywood. And, just as you might hope, The Florida Project is more accomplished and consistent, and even more moving, than Tangerine.

Visually, The Florida Project is breathtaking. Filming in the economically depressed neighborhoods surrounding Disney World, Baker captures a bleak sprawl of highways, failing strip malls, and almost impossible tacky motels. Our main characters are Jancey (Valeria Cotto) and Moonee (Brooklynn Prince), a twenty-something mother and 6-year old daughter who live in the Magic Castle motel and whom are both frequently in trouble with authority figures. We also spend time with the motel’s manager (Willem Dafoe), as well as many of the other people who call Magic Castle home.

The Florida Project is a wonderful, mesmerizing, and frequently heartbreaking slice of fitful lives lived in the shadows of a corporate-driven monolith of American fantasy. The performances are fantastic, so naturalistic that The Florida Project becomes an engrossing experience with the emotional heft of a documentary. Moonee, bound to be remembered as one of cinema’s best child protagonists, spends her days getting in and out of mischief (and sometimes a brand of mischief better described as a felony) with her friends and using her imagination to devise an escapism more effective than any Pixar film or amusement park ride.

Baker has the rare gift of being able to see through the eyes of a child without contrived affectation. The Florida Project is a truly special, devastating film, a bittersweet adolescent tale with the poignance of early Truffaut. Its final scenes, a cinematic miracle of sorts, are a jolting, heartbreaking reminder of why we watch movies in the first place.