Florida Project, The (2017) [Blu-ray]
Drama

Tagline: Welcome to a magical kingdom.
Tagline: The kids are definitely not alright.

The story of a precocious six year-old and her ragtag group of friends whose summer break is filled with childhood wonder, possibility and a sense of adventure while the adults around them struggle with hard times.

Storyline: Halley lives with her six year old daughter Moonee in a budget motel along one of the commercial strips catering to the Walt Disney World tourist clientele outside Orlando, Florida. Halley, who survives largely on welfare, has little respect for people, especially those who cross her, it an attitude that she has passed down to Moonee, who curses and gives the finger like her mother. Although the motel's policy is not to allow long term rentals, Bobby, the motel manager, has made arrangements for people like Halley to live there while not undermining the policy as he realizes that many such tenants have no place to go otherwise. Halley, Moonee and Moonee's friends, who live in the motel or others like it along the strip and who she often drags into her disruptive pranks, are often the bane of Bobby's existence, but while dealing with whatever problem arises, Bobby has a soft spot especially for the children and thus, by association, their parents, as he knows that Moonee and others ... Written by Huggo

Reviewer's Note: Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman, February 19, 2018 If you've ever wondered what taking a trip to the so-called Happiest Place on Earth with David Lynch might be like (and who among us hasn't?), there's a pretty good cinematic equivalent to be found in the startling if often nonsensical Escape from Tomorrow, certainly one of the more gonzo outings I've had show up in my review queue over the many years I've been doing this. As bizarre as the actual content of Escape from Tomorrow was, as those who have read our Escape from Tomorrow Blu-ray review may recall, it was actually the guerrilla filming techniques utilized by director Randy Moore and his crew which really put the film on the radar of many viewers. Disneyland and Walt Disney World evidently have very strict rules prohibiting the filming of features on their grounds, and so Moore and his cast and crew simply pretended to be "normal" park visitors as they documented the surreal adventures that suffuse that film. There's something at least a little similar going on in the closing moments of The Florida Project, a film whose very title alludes to the "top secret" name given to Walt Disney World when it was still in development. While similar to Escape from Tomorrow in terms of its own top secret filming on the grounds of an iconic Disney owned theme park, in other ways The Florida Project is the antithesis of the earlier film, since it attempts to deal in gritty realities rather than near hallucinatory escapades. This bittersweet story revolves around a little girl named Moonee (Brooklynn Prince) who, along with her largely destitute mother Halley (Bria Vinaite), lives in a spectacularly purple motel in Orlando cheekily (and just as spectacularly inaccurately) named The Magic Castle, assumedly fairly close to Walt Disney World.

There's an adorable sweetness to the opening of The Florida Project, which finds Moonee hanging out with her best buds Scooty (Christopher Rivera) and Dicky (Aidan Malik). That sweetness soon enough turns to at least questionable behavior when the trio takes off to a neighboring hotel, where they alight to a second floor balcony in order to have a spitting contest, the results of which coat a dilapidated car below. That vehicle turns out to belong to Stacy (Sandy Kane), who has a take no prisoners approach toward misbehavior and trots right over to The Magic Castle, where she reports the behavior to the motel's manager Bobby Hicks (Willem Dafoe, an Academy Award nominee for Best Supporting Actor for this performance). Bobby in turn tells Halley she'd best take care of the issue, and warns her again that she's facing eviction for smoking in her room.

Stacy is in charge of her granddaughter Jancey (Valeria Cotto), and Moonee and Jancey (are there no normal names in Orlando?) strike up a friendship. The film is kind of vignette driven, detailing the hardscrabble lives of many of these characters, while focusing mostly on the travails of Halley and Moonee. Halley is kind of a train wreck, and not exactly what one might think of as a traditional nurturing mother (to say the least), but she does have a raucous spirit that she has obviously passed down to Moonee. That said, Halley is distressingly short on the supervisory aspects of parenting, and Moonee is "adventurous", leading to at least a couple of incidents that are either minor annoyances (turning the electricity off to the motel) or in one case an actual crime (setting fire to an abandoned condo nearby).

The Florida Project's plot dynamics are perhaps less important than the mood the film creates and for the most part sustains. There's a really interesting tonal dialectic at play throughout the film where the "wonder" of being a child and all that entails keeps crashing into the downtrodden reality of "real life". The narrative "arc", such as it is, is on the meandering side, and the film's wind up has led to a number of responses which have varied from "WTF" to "sheer genius", in what may remind some of how the last few moments of Birdman were received and debated by various viewers.

If the storytelling has at least a few questionable moments, The Florida Project has a slew of fantastic performances, including by a number of people who are making their feature debuts. In a way I'm actually kind of surprised that it was Dafoe who wrested an Oscar nomination for this film, for while his performance is certainly fine, it's the work of little Prince that continually impresses throughout The Florida Project. She's both sweet and provocative, as little kids often are, and she has a refreshing naturalness that augurs well for a continuing career. Also registering strongly is newcomer Vinaite, who is salty as all get out but who manages to also reveal Halley's more vulnerable side.

Not to be too pointed about it, but maybe this film should have been called The Florida Projects, given its low income housing aspect. As a tale that might be thought of as a sort of Childhood's End (so to speak), The Florida Project is both sweet and tart in about equal measure. The storytelling is a little haphazard, but performances ring true throughout. Technical merits are first rate, and The Florida Project comes Recommended.

[CSW] -3.9- This film is a very gritty, stark look at poverty, and despite the subject matter I enjoyed watching this film. Very good acting, especially by Willem Dafoe and the young 7-year-old star of the film (Brooklynn Prince). This is a powerful work of social realism catastrophe in the post-Tarantino American film. My first reaction was depression that there are people living one step away from being homeless. But on further reflection I found it thought provoking, and touching without being sentimental. The adults have brought their problems on themselves. The children manage to keep themselves entertained without creating too much (mostly) mischief. The entire cast does a wonderful job. I'm surprised by the negative reviews. It also feels like a window into a way of life that most of us do not see. From the negative reviews, it is pretty clear that most do not want to see it. I found this film deeply, deeply moving not as much during the film but in the after thoughts and feeling that it should leave you with.
[V4.5-A4.0] MPEG-4 AVC - No D-Box


º º