The Florida Project – I saw The Florida Project with two of my Madison Indie Filmmaker friends. It’s the newest film directed by Sean Baker, who 
made Tangerine in 2015 using only iPhone 5s which was set in L.A. on Christmas Eve and tells the story of a day-in-the-life of transgender sex worker, Sin-Dee Rella, her friends on the streets, and her pimp boyfriend. Most of the action takes place on the streets and the businesses where they frequent. “The Florida Project” is set in Florida a little further outside the gates of the Disney World Resort and the Magic Kingdom. In this story, the main character is a six-year-old girl named Moonee (played by Brooklynn Prince in a stunning breakout performance), who lives with her mother Halley in a $38/night motel room at the Magic Castle, a three-story motel on the outskirts of Orlando, that’s painted to mimic the bright colors of nearby Disney World. It’s adjacent to competing motels, strip malls, and tourist traps and a world away from the families who visit the Disney resort. The story takes place one summer in Moonee’s life as she and her best friend, Scooty, welcome a new girl, Jancey, from a neighboring motel into their ragtag gang. They spend the summer running through parking lots, up and down motel stairs, and explore swamps and abandoned buildings. They have spitting contests and terrorize the haggard, cranky resident who wears too much makeup and too little clothes as she insists on sunbathing topless. All-in-all they get into as much mischief as they are able to get away with. They are full of adventure, curiosity, and students of the con. These are kids at risk and kids who are unsupervised, except for the watchful eye of the motel manager, Bobby (played by Wilhem Dafoe, in one of his most memorable performances). Not all is fun and games in Moonee’s life as her mother struggles to find ways to get by, pay rent, and maintain a hardscrabble life often enlisting Moonee’s participation. The movie is dedicated to Spanky McFarland of Our Gang fame. It’s easy to see why. This film is an entertaining and poignant story of how people survive below the poverty line and how children are often the first casualties. Additional credit goes to Sean Baker’s co-writer and his cinematographer, who makes the mundane brilliant and oddly beautiful. See this film.
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Featured photo by: Riccardo Passarella