OCTOBER 17, 2017
This is a tough one.
I saw this film at a screening in Palm Springs, and in an audience of supposed cineastes, I saw people walking out almost immediately. It’s that kind of movie, I guess.
And I sympathize with them. The first 20 minutes of “The Florida Project” are a little tough to take, looking at a Florida residential motel through a child’s eyes. As I saw 6 year-old Moonee (the wonderful Brooklynn Kimberly Prince) being our tour guide through the lives of Americans living on the fringes of society, I wasn’t sure what to make of it. Then it hit me that “The Florida Project” is much closer to being a new wave French film, particularly those films by Francois Truffaut, such as “The 400 Blows” and “Small Change” than it is an American art house film. Seen it that light, “The Florida Project” makes perfect sense.
Director and co-writer Sean Baker is beginning to specialize on those folks living on the fringe. His breakthrough film, 2015’s “Tangerine” about transgender sex workers on Hollywood’s Santa Monica Blvd., marked him as a filmmaker interested in those Americans about whom films are simply just not made.
“The Florida Project,” which was the code name that Disney used in discussing the construction of the forthcoming Walt Disney World in Orlando, is set in Kissimmee, FL, about 10 miles from the gates of the Magic Kingdom. Still, the Disney aura is pervasive, as the name of the motel where the film is focused is The Magic Castle, a lavender-colored rooming house that appears to be designed to lure unsuspecting tourists into thinking that it provides lodging on Disney property. Nothing could be further from the truth.
The Magic Castle is run by Bobby Hicks (Willem Dafoe), who is the heart and soul of “The Florida Project.” He has to deal with all of the complaints of his tenants, who are largely single parents trying to raise kids on their own. But his biggest concern is Halley (Bria Vinaite), a tenant who is a failed stripper (!) and Moonee’s mom, who is in her early 20s and has to struggle to come up with the monthly rent. In many ways, Halley is as much of a child as Moonee is, as she does her best to cope with a situation not of her making but one with which she is stuck.
Seeing this entire world through a child’s eyes is a big gamble — you’ve got to get a child actress expressive enough to communicate her point of view, and with Brooklynn Pierce, Baker has struck pay dirt. Pierce’s performance is one of the best by a child that I have seen in the last decade — she’s just that good. And Vinaite, also a non-professional actress, is absolutely heartbreaking as Moonee’s mom, who knows the situation she’s in and doesn’t know how to get out of it, except to turn a trick or two, which proves to be her undoing.
But it is Dafoe who, at this moment, would have to be considered the front runner in the Oscar race for Best Supporting Actor, holds “The Florida Project” together. Whether shooing flamingos off of the Magic Castle’s driveway to protecting Moonee as her mom is being investigated by Child Protective Services (pictured above), we are with Dafoe’s Bobby every step of the way. It’s a career-high performance for this distinguished actor.
If you want to walk out after 10 minutes like these Palm Springs cineastes, be my guest, but I would so urge you to stay with “The Florida Project.” By the end, it will repay you many times of the time you put into it.
GRADE: B+
