The Florida Project is a film that never stops to explain itself. Light on structure, it appears more as an impressionistic mosaic. I had to step back and really think about it before I got the whole picture, and it really is a sight to behold. It poses questions large and small, about the nature of motherhood, the simple joys of childhood, the economic slavery that lives in the juxtaposition of poverty and wealth, and the value of small acts of human kindness. This is not an easy movie, but the payoff is well worth it.
The story revolves around the wild, unsupervised adventures of six-year-old Moonee and her friends as they roam the swamps, motels, ice cream huts, and pastures around the motel she lives in with her mother, Halley. Minute by minute, this takes up the vast majority of the film. But there is more going on in the background that Moonee is only vaguely aware of. Her mother, Halley, already only a partially functioning adult, begins a downward slide into a deep depression and severe dysfunction. Her means of providing for Moonee descend from a sort of honest, if sketchy, hustle to outright theft, scamming and prostitution to get by as she becomes increasingly desperate to acquire the means to continue on as a parent. One gets the sense that without Moonee, upon whom she has a very, very loose leash, she would have little reason to continue trying at all.
Sean Baker, the director and co-writer, has earned a reputation for making offbeat indie flicks that bypass traditional Hollywood storytelling for rawer, sinew and marrow realism. You may know him from the short-lived TV show Greg the Bunny, and his most recent film, Tangerine, which was filmed entirely on iPhone 5s’. The Florida Project only strengthens his reputation. His decision to use mostly first-time actors who are actually from the area the film is based gives it a rawness not normally seen in the high gloss perfection Hollywood usually churns out. In fact, as it takes place in a motel with a poor, long-term resident population, most of the extras actually live the life depicted on screen at the very hotel where it was shot, including a child who plays one of Moonee’s friends. Going one step further, in one scene where Halley and Moonee are selling discount perfume to upscale hotel guests in the parking lot, their would-be patrons are not actors at all, but actual, completely unaware guests of the hotel. This bit of guerilla filmmaking added another layer of authenticity to a film already rich with it.
There’s a risk of using these people as props, but Baker aces this test by faithfully telling their story. It is not poverty as entertainment, it’s poverty as truth, as life. Baker borrows from the traditions of cinéma vérité to tell a story hidden beneath the otherwise amorphous nature of widespread, systemic poverty. Baker sought script approval from both the residents of the motels as well as the motel owners to ensure authenticity, avoid exploitation and treat the subjects with respect. As Baker himself said in an interview with NPR, “representation is important.” He excels at making invisible the hands of the writers and director and allowing a film’s subjects speak for themselves.
Choosing to focus so strongly on the point of view of Moonee was a risky gamble that paid off. Knowing adults can see what Moonee is experiencing and pick up on what she is completely oblivious to, as when Moonee helps her mother take photos for her sexual encounters advertisement, or when Moonee is locked away in the bathroom taking a seemingly innocent bath with loud music playing while Halley is at work in the next room. It displays the innocence and ignorance of childhood through scenes like this better than most any film I’ve seen.
Baker makes one notable exception to his casting of new actors. Having Willem Dafoe as an anchor point in the movie was a good choice. I believe his character, Bobby, serves as a sort of personification of basic humanity, of basic human decency. He’s a regular guy trying to juggle the orders given to him by the motel’s owner and also the plight of his dozens of long term residents as they try to survive and as many try to raise their children. He’s also dealing with his own problems. We’re left to glean what we can from a single scene that explains some of his background, with no explanation whatsoever, but it appears he has an estranged son and an ex-wife he’s not fond of. The son gives him money that Bobby initially refuses and then, when pressed, keeps, professing that even if he doesn’t want it, the people at the motel might. Either he’s willing to swallow his pride to help those around him or he is in fact only a little better off than his residents. It is through small acts of kindness, mediating disputes, trying to instill order, protecting the gaggle of children that roam unsupervised from possible predators, offering money or a kind word when he believes it will do the most good, that we realize human kindness and decency is a down to earth, every day thing. Bobby, like a grunt in the army, is holding the line every day without much thanks for his efforts.
I was surprised and impressed to find out that much of Moonee’s dialogue, delivered by six-year-old Brooklynn Prince, was actually scripted, though they did allow her freedom to improvise some scenes. I would have assumed that such authentic child dialogue would have been too difficult to write and too difficult for a child actor to deliver. The acting and dialogue, as well as the plot, reminds me of the 2012 film Beasts of the Southern Wild. Both feature a young girl who spends a large portion of the movie unsupervised roaming the area near home; both take place in areas of extreme poverty and have missing and absent, incapable parents; both seem to be a celebration, on some level, of the wildness of childhood unencumbered by rules, but also unprotected by the safety a more stable home would provide. I think movies like this run along a knife edge between celebrating childhood and glorifying or mythologizing the dangerous life of orphans and kids with absent, neglectful parents. Happily, both films stay on the right side of that line. These films also accurately portray the clear point when childhood ends; when the worries and consequences of parental decisions and problems are visited upon their children. This is especially so with Moonee.
Much like the lenses directors choose for their cameras, the viewer can apply both a wide and narrow focus when evaluating the film. Narrowly, it is a film about the free spiritedness of a child in the summer, and about her mother’s struggles to make ends meet. It is also about the humdrum life of a motel manager. With a wider lens, however, the movie is an encapsulation of the state of poverty in America. These folks must be shuffled out of their rooms once a month so they cannot legally establish residency, which would actually afford them some protections and rights. They don’t have stable or steady jobs that might afford them nicer, and likely cheaper, accommodations like a rented house or apartment. Moonee appears to live off junk food and bread handouts from a local charity truck. And yet they are surrounded by a playground for the wealthy. Gift shops line the roads near their motel. The final shot of the movie was filmed on a cell phone surreptitiously in Disney World with just two of the kids and a horde of unsuspecting vacationers, their hands laden with bags full of high priced souvenirs while just down the road motels are jammed packed full of poverty-stricken fellow citizens. Still, one could hardly imagine the area without the money these vacationers bring, for millions of jobs depend on their tourism. What to do when the thing that’s killing you is also keeping you alive?
And therein lies some of the genius of the hands-off approach Baker has taken to storytelling in The Florida Project. The movie speaks volumes about a bevy of its characters and the topics it touches upon, and yet it preaches no particular message. It is truth least refined but finely honed, a beautiful mess of raw emotion, and wholly worth your time.
