The perfectly calibrated performances, especially from Brooklynn Prince and Willem Dafoe, adds further weight to an altogether winning experience.
The Florida Project
Cast: Bria Vinaite, Willem Dafoe, Caleb Landry Jones, Valeria Cotto, Brooklynn Prince, Caleb Jones, Christopher Rivera, Macon Blair, Karren Karagulian, Sandy Kane
Director: Sean Baker
Rating:
Foul language, disturbing behavior, sexual references and drug material may have been muted out, some of it even chopped off, yet 'The Florida Project' directed by Sean Baker hits you with its specifics, contained in a whole that is not interested in making a statement but in lending an experience that is dysfunctional American even while it is protective of its profanity-wielding young characters within. Set in the shadow of a Disneyland, 6-year-old Moonee(Brooklynn Prince), Scooty (Christopher Rivera) and sweet Jancey (Valeria Cotto) forge their own adventures, while Moonee's struggling mom and a kind-hearted motel manager protect the kids from the harsh reality that surrounds them.
The film opens with Monee and Scooty spitting on a car parked in front of The Magic Castle hotel, a forgettable dig on a strip of cheap motels, gun stores, tourist traps etc. A cheap option for tourists en route to Disneyland and also a convenient home for the middle-class vying for cheap accommodation, The Magic Castle hotel is the antithesis of it's moniker. There's no magic there except the kind that Monee, Scooty and Jancey create in their quest for everyday excitement.
Baker, who also co-scripted the narrative, creates Monee and her friends as real-life characters with everyday struggles -repetitive routines that symbolise a fight for survival. He shows us that the young have their own little ways of making their lives interesting and fun. Moonee and her friends get a kick out of making noises into an oscillating fan or brushing doll's hair in the tub, or even using paper towels to clean off the spit from the car's windshield as penance for their misbehaviour. And Monee is no wide-eyed innocent. She is far more aware of the world than the adults around her. Moonee is no Eloise (from the picture book), even if she does her best to try the patience of adults. While Monee is having her share of fun, her mother Halley (Bria Vinaite), is fast losing her grip on security. She struggles with the rent, has no job, and sells perfume in the parking lots of the fancier hotels in Orlando. Bobby(Willem Dafoe), the all-too-human hotel manager does his best to help them stay afloat though.
While Monee and friends cook up pranks and follow their whims, heedless of the consequences, Baker makes us party to an underlying sense of dread. Monee is, after all, a child at risk. The characters in this film come in at episodic intervals but they have an all-permeating influence on the eventual outcomes. There's both joy and desperation here and it's so finely balanced that you come out of the movie entirely sublimated.
Baker neither pontificates nor romanticises, he allows us to glimpse their lives in a raw unadulterated form that may seem boring but hits you with a wallop once you are out of the theatres. The perfectly calibrated performances, especially from Brooklynn Prince and Willem Dafoe, adds further weight to an altogether winning experience. The sheer honesty in this essay is what gets to you in the end!
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