Review: The Florida Project
Two years ago, writer-director Sean Baker announced himself as a filmmaker to watch with his fifth feature, Tangerine, a vibrant slice-of-life revolving around a transgender prostitute that was entirely shot on with iPhone cameras. His latest work, The Florida Project, is an equally dynamic affair, this time shot on digital and 35mm film, and focusing on another community of marginalised figures, ones living in the run-down but gaudily-coloured motels in Kissimmee, Florida, not too far from Walt Disney's Magic Kingdom.
Point of fact: Disney World was known as "The Florida Project" at the time of its development and though the motels of the film bear names like the Magic Castle and Futureland, they are distinctly leeched of any sense of wonder and promise. If anything, they seem like purgatories for its dwellers, all of whom are living hand-to-mouth existences. Not that that reality registers for the group of kids, led by six-year-old Moonee (Brooklynn Prince), on which the film focuses. Much like the urchins that fronted Hal Roach's Our Gang series, which Baker cites as a major influence, Moonee and her friends Jancey (Valeria Cotto), Scooty (Christopher Rivera), and Dicky (Aiden Malik) roam about their surroundings, treating it like one infinite wonderland in which there is fun to be had and chaos to be caused.
Indeed, how can they not view their environment as a playground of sorts? From the orange-shaped Orange World to the giant Wizard that adorns the gift shop to the ice cream shop designed to look like an ice cream cone, everything has a touch of wonder. Even her mother Halley's (Bria Vinaite) constant hustlings to meet the $38 a night rent is like a game for Moonee, who helps her hawk perfumes to tourists in hotel parking lots. Yet Baker doesn't ignore the darker aspects: for one thing, there's no denying that Halley's reckless lifestyle and combative nature is being absorbed by Moonee. The near-sociopathic ragings of Halley are, quite frankly, hard to tolerate, which already places viewers firmly on the side of Bobby (Willem Dafoe), the exasperated hotel manager who also serves as Moonee's somewhat reluctant father figure and protector.
Baker observes the goings-on with a documentarian's eye, and does well in integrating more seasoned performers like Dafoe and Caleb Landry Jones with inexperienced first-timers like Vinaite, whom Baker discovered on Instagram, and the irresistible dynamo that is Prince. However, inasmuch as Vinaite looks and often acts the part, one has a very strong sense that a more skilled actress would have been less self-conscious and one-note. Though The Florida Project is more polished overall than the raggedly resplendent Tangerine, it feels a somewhat lesser film. It may have to do with the episodic nature of the film or perhaps even its subjects. Yet it's difficult to deny its predominant big-heartedness, its discovering beauty in the darkest of depths, and for that stirring finale which Baker shot guerrilla-style on his iPhone.
The Florida Project
Directed by: Sean Baker
Written by: Sean Baker, Chris Bergoch
Starring: Willem Dafoe, Brooklynn Prince, Valeria Cotto, Bria Vinaite, Christopher Rivera, Caleb Landry Jones
