The Florida Project (2017)

The Florida Project

At the Gates of the Magic Kingdom

"Stymie, where are we going?" 

"I don't know, brother, but we're on our way!”

- Our Gang film "Free Wheeling

“It’s about drama”

- Christopher Rivera, child actor who played Scooty. Response to interview question, “what is “The Florida Project” about?”

Sean Baker’s “The Florida Project” takes its title from a play on words. Project” is US slang for public housing as well as being part of “working titles” while films are in production. The “project” in question is a series of motels for homeless families located on the outskirts of Disney World. The movie is a portrait of the “guests”. The single moms, grandmothers, children and elderly pass their days in the shadow of a heliport, which shuttles VIPs to the Magic Kingdom. The divide between the dispossessed and the state of the art amusement park is highlighted in the lapsarian landscape of crumbling buildings that suggest happier times. Disney World is chockablock with top notch hotels and period buildings representing many worlds. The shops on the other side are decorated in garish re-creations of their wares. The orange drink stand is in the shape of… an orange. The toy store has an oversized wizard jutting from the facade. These artistic troupes were in vogue decades ago at the dawn of the the automobile age, before established eye-catching symbols such as Mickey Mouse ears or McDonald’s Arches. There are no successful franchise businesses on these street, further cementing this neighborhood as a land that time forgot… or more precisely, would prefer to forget. The occupants are overt outcasts. The small businesses and coterie of motel and social service workers are bound by lack of opportunity rather than a burning desire to associate with their clientele. The exception might be the occasional visits from church groups distributing food. Aside of the angels of mercy, no one chooses to own, or check into, a faded purple colored motor-lodge named “Paradise”. Baker tells the story of economic refugees trapped in a cruel system. Despite the subject, this is a strangely joyous film.

Dramatic features about underclass children focus on pain and sorrow. One need only think of last year’s breakthrough movie “Moonlight”, also set in the slums of Florida. The first of that film’s three segments shows the terrified, exploited boy literally hiding from his tormentors. Over time he takes refuge in the nearby ocean, where his mentor teaches him to swim. Baker’s story is, metaphorically, built around that therapeutic beach. It is a portrait of the defiant, invincibility of children. His success is due largely to the young actress Brooklynn Prince, whose portrayal of the Moonee is the cornerstone of “The Florida Story”. The writer/director presents her and the other characters with the deftness of a beloved mentor touching on an unpleasant topic. The first fifteen minutes have the lightheartedness of a modern day “Little Rascals” episode, albeit with more explicit language and stronger defiance of authority figures. Moonee and her sidekick, a young boy named Scooty, are caught spitting on a car from a balcony of the motel. They are confronted by the vehicle’s owner, a grandmother caring for a young girl their age named Jancey. We are soon introduced to the authority figure Bobby , a benevolent hotel manger, brilliantly underplayed by Willem Dafoe (note: he is the only recognizable star amongst this exceptional cast). The reconciliation, brokered by Bobby, requires that the offending children clean up the mess. The grandmother and Moonee’s mother, Halley, taunt each other about their lack of parental ability while their charges clean up. Despite the adult discord Jancey is charmed by Moonee and Scooty. They become fast friends. The trio begin a series of adventures that capture life outside the kingdom. The director hides his laser focus on building sympathy for this unlikely group of heroes in an air of serendipity. The audience is lulled into caring, not just about the children.

Moonee’s mother, Halley, has no capacity for taking responsibility and acting as an adult. In the hands of a less talented filmmaker she might seem a caricature of the underclass. Thankfully the audience can see beyond her outrageous antics. Although, at times, it is a challenge. At one point she is angered by Bobby. She stands in front of the Motel office in full view of everyone. She reaches into her crotch and pastes her maxi pad on the glass window.  And yet… the audience takes her side in her meetings with the indifferent bureaucracy, mall cops or the unsympathetic neighboring hotel owner. In this last instance a middle aged East Indian woman refuses her entrance to her newly acquired motel. The genius of Baker is there is also empathy for the owner. We might make the same decision. This vignette also highlights the insanity of a system. Willem Dafoe must evict the residents every so often to prevent the tenant from establishing legal residency (i.e. are given rights to the motel property). There is a monthly ritual of the mother and daughter being brought down the street a $35 overnight stay in a neighboring motel. Things go off course when the new owner raises the rent to $45 and refuses Halley’s voucher. Bobby is called into to broker the dispute. He personally puts up the money. Unfortunately Halley’s insults have generated so much acrimony she is denied entrance…. leading to more cursing and her chef d’oeuvre, pouring soda all over the lobby. She and Moonee take refuge for the night in the grandmother’s room… the woman whose car was spat on in the opening sequence.

Baker never gives speeches but lets the intricacy of the alliances and absurdity of the rules tell the story. The genuineness of the interactions is fueled by careful preparation. This director has brought John Cassavetes improvisational prowess to a new generation. That pioneering filmmaker, with films such as “Shadows”, “A Woman Under the Influence”, “The Killing of a Chinese Bookie”, gave American cinema the dynamism of documentary with the thrill of a dramatic feature. Baker might sacrifice the crispness of a conventional fiction film cinematography, but the honesty of the performances more than makes up for the occasional obscured facial expression. Having the actors wired by radio microphones gives the filmmaker two basic choices for coverage. Baker employs a wide shot, in which the action unfolds in a panorama. The other approach is to have the camera operator follow the players. Generally the strategy worked, although there are moments that begged for standard camera “set ups”. The final scene with Moonee and Scooty would have been stronger had there been a clear view of the expression of the figure who triggered their estrangement. Overall, however, the rendering of the people in the many tableaus rank with the real life drama delivered by the seminal documentary about homeless children, “Streetwise”. There is a moment in Martin Bell’s masterpiece where a father places a soda can on the coffin of his dead son while he grieves his loss. Although Halley might rise to that level of inappropriateness, there are many adults who are paradigms of virtue. 

Willem Dafoe, the motel manager, is a force of quiet calm amidst the maelstrom of broken people and appliances. He fixes dishwashers, brokers disputes, protects the children from pedophiles, adheres to the owners demands, represents the “guest’s” interest…. all in a day’s work. He often sits looking at the old black and white surveillance monitors as a benevolent big brother/shrink/doctor/handyman. His gracious demeanor to society’s cast offs, for example the elderly woman who insists on drinking topless by the pool, channels a bodhisattva’s well of universal respect for all living things. He is even polite to a flock of large whooping cranes that meander in the parking lot. He gently shoos them away from the unforgiving human wildness into the comprehensible wilderness. He is not alone in his quiet decency. Ashley, the mother of Scooty, balances being a single parent and working as a waitress in a diner. She is repeatedly bringing food to Ashley and the children the through the back door of the restaurant. This is in return for Halley’s “babysitting”. Ashley is well aware of the limits of her friend’s abilities to supervise anyone, let alone a group of boisterous children. This is one of many tough choices she faces while trying to balance the demands of holding a job and raising a child.

Ashley falling out with Halley is a pivotal to the story. It illustrates the vulnerability of being on the cusp of losing everything. All the guests live by the whim of indifferent outside forces. Lives can be overturned by an angry motel owner, an anonymous phone call to the authorities (The Police or the Florida Department of Children and Families). The identity of who is responsible for an accidental fire leads to a potentially devastating revelation that could potentially jeopardizes Ashley’s custody and housing. In a middle class setting this event would provoke a heart to heart amongst the parents. In a world where blame can be weaponized to provoke and unforgiving bureaucracy, the only course of action is silence, coupled with seemingly cruel actions. Moonee and Scooty are no longer permitted to play and Ashley and Halley become mortal enemies. Halley’s lack of appropriateness is exponentially triggered by feeling slighted. She escalates the situation leading to disaster on all fronts. The director genius is showing all sides. The audience understands Ashley’s harsh isolation is born of shielding her housing and child. At the same time Halley’s livid reaction to suddenly being shunned is equally comprehensible. This is a woman who, in her heart, means well. She is capable of extraordinary acts of kindness. There is a sequence where she takes her charges to an overlook in the woods for a free view of the magic kingdom’s fireworks show. One of the children has a birthday and she tells the star-struck little girl that the pyrotechnics are all for her while giving her a cupcake with a candle. Does this act of love mitigate the choice of hitchhiking with two little girls to a remote wooded area? Probably not. But it is safe to say this child’s joy surpassed anything felt by the myriad of middle class kids on the other side of the wall. Ditto for the appreciation Moonee will feel for the buffet brunch, which her mother “arranges” when she realizes the end is near. Through a middle class lens this is a reckless act of theft. It is conceivable, however, that a middle aged Moonee will look back on her mother’s thievery in the light of kindness spurred on by desperation. This assumes she will live to see middle age.

It is important to note the fate of the child star of the extraordinary Brazilian film, “Pixote”, which documents the harrowing abuse of small children in the gritty favelas. The film was made with street children. Ironically there is a moment in “The Florida Project” where a wealthy Brazilian couple is accidentally booked into the wrong “Magic Castle” motel for their honeymoon. Moonee and Jancey grab their bags looking for tips. The new bride turns to her husband and screams in Portuguese, “you bring me to a place with stray children?”. It is hard to know if the sub title translation was accurate but certainly the attitude towards street kids was akin to our view of “stray cats.” Back in their native land the star of “Pixote” was dead at the age of 19. Killed by the police, who have been accused of outright extermination of dispossessed children. This is the pall that hovers over “The Florida Project” despite Moonee’s smile. 

The United States does not have sanctioned death squads, but the institutional treatment of the homeless might produce the same result. Despite the children’s levity, every unaccompanied adventure on busy streets, every exploration of an abandoned building, every foray into the alligator infested swamps,  every visit to an impaired neighbors’ room…  is a footstep away from abduction or serious injury. This stands in stark contrast to the shielded children on the other side of the “wall”. The final images of this film are the two best friends gleefully breaking on through to the other side. It is reminiscent of Dorothy and her misfits entering the Emerald City. The magic castle is the centerpiece, but the real action is the difference between the little girls and the other children. The pair runs by a phalanx of families posing together with the iconic fortress in the background. Moonee and Jancey are as exuberant as all the other kids. To a passerby everyone is indistinguishable…. and therein lies the tragedy. Hopefully these metaphorical sisters will live to be able to tell their children about the experience. If they are fortunate they will follow the wage slave drudgery of Ashley, rather than Halley’s drug-fueled hustle. Either way they will always have their afternoon in Disney World. We have been blessed to see their brief trip to heaven…. but we are cursed to know what keeps them outside the magic kingdom.