After a verbal altercation with a security guard outside a golf resort, Halley explains why she withdrew in defeat to her 6-year-old, Moonee.
“I can’t get arrested again,” mom tells her daughter.
“Can we go out for ice cream,” the little girl replies with no comprehension of the precariousness of their life.
They are the protagonists of The Florida Project, the latest look at the shadow side of America by director Sean Baker. A compelling depiction of skid row, circa 2017, The Florida Project is sometimes hilarious but often sad and ultimately heartbreaking. The film takes its name from the utopian community envisioned by Walt Disney during the 1960s near the site that eventually became Epcot and unfolds in the tacky strip where Disney’s aborted city of the future might have been built. Halley (Bria Vinaite), Moonee (Brooklynn Prince) and their neighbors live in the motels along the highway into Epcot—places with fanciful names like the Magic Castle or the Futureland Inn, whose sign is perched atop mock rocket ships.
Moonee describes the residents of her Magic Castle to a friend from Futureland as they skip along the cement balcony fronting the upstairs units and overlooking the parking lot. “The man who lives here gets arrested a lot,” she explains matter-of-factly. And pointing to the next door, she adds, “The woman who lives in here thinks she’s married to Jesus.”
A crafty kid, Moonee cons change from customers at the ice cream stand, claiming she has asthma and her doctor says ice cream relieves the symptoms. She maintains an endearing innocence amid the danger and depravity on all sides and roams the flat terrain, weedy fields and sickly palm trees poking through the asphalt, in ongoing adventures played out across endless summer days.
She lives in a cramped motel room with her mother, who is barely in her 20s, covered in tattoos, hooked on cigarettes and acting as if responsibility is a dirty word. Halley is a sponge, living off the dole, day-old bakery handed out by a Christian charity van in the car park and leftover meals passed to Moonee through the back door of a run-down restaurant. Eventually, as suspected all along, we find that she sells a little dope and turns a few tricks when panhandling can’t make ends meet.
The Florida Project’s cast is unknown and non-professional except for the story’s closest thing to a hero, Bobby, played by Willem Dafoe. Although hard-pressed as manager of the Magic Castle, Bobby keeps a level head in his role as mayor of Bedlam. Moonee’s pranks—tossing a dead fish into the pool and turning off the building’s electricity—are minor irritants in a bedbug-infested world whose cracks can’t be concealed by a new coat of paint. He cares about the many kids who live in the motel, keeps an eye out for the pedophiles and tries to resolve the conflicts that spark among his tenants, all of them impoverished and hanging on week by week.
Baker shot his previous movie, Tangerine, about transgender prostitutes, on iPhones. By contrast, he filmed The Florida Project in 35-millimeter, endowing the decrepit settings with a suggestion of cinematic beauty that adheres to the story’s tone—never preachy but hyper aware.
