Sean Baker’s The Florida Project introduces us to childhood naiveté and the wonderment of youth’s blissful ignorance juxtaposed with maternal struggle and sacrifice. Outstanding performances by first time actresses Brooklynn Prince and Bria Vinaite found the realism of this piece, and a compassionate and loving character hiding under a stern facade is played perfectly by Willem Dafoe.
The enterprise that Baker embarks upon to tell an affecting story of a mother and daughter living on the thin economic margins of near poverty is an admirable one, and one full of subtext, nuance, and ingenuity. It is by all means a great film that takes many risks and deserves the recognition it has garnered, but a film that lacks consolidation in its many messages.
Halley is a character written superbly as an immature and ostentatious mother struggling to make ends meet, but more could have been done to develop her promising arc. Of course there are endearing moments like Halley bringing Moonee and Jancey to watch fireworks, or Halley piggybacking Moonee back home, but her ever-loosening grip on controlling her family’s reality should have been given more opportunities to shine.
Halley’s decision to turn to prostitution was not explored completely, leaving it up to us to assume that it was a necessary sacrifice. We should not have to assume, and more screen time of Halley’s initial reluctance or hesitancy to turn to such illicit methods would have sufficed in mustering our empathy and crystallize the element of sacrifice as one of the film’s central themes.
The Florida Project, however, still entices with its colors and cinematography that kindles reminiscence of everyone’s most juvenile pleasures. The pastel palette of the architecture encloses us in a bright playground, and the low angle shots remind us of the days of youth when we were much closer to the ground.
There is a scene of nearly 30 seconds where the camera pans slowly from one side of the motel balcony to the other, following four children giggling, pointing and screaming as they run across the screen. Our eyes laterally follow the children, and we wonder when our own last moments of innocence allowed us also to run across an open hallway with such exuberant spirit. This scene is perfect in its simplicity and emblematic of Moonee’s ability to make the most ordinary moments into her carnival of joy.
Embedded within the film are also motifs that illuminate the feeling of imprisonment and the cycle of hardship of families similar to Halley and Moonee’s. The helicopter, reoccurring as an object of fascination by the children, is always flying to a destination while the staring children remain rooted to the ground. As the helicopter disappears into the distance, Jancey shouts “Hallelujah! Thank you Lord Jesus!”, as if the helicopter, perhaps her saviour and grace, is the messianic vehicle that she hopes can transport her away from this harsh reality.
A film like The Florida Project that doesn’t follow a strict and elaborate plot can always end in a number of ways, and the way Baker decided to conclude this drama felt clumsy and left me bewildered initially. In an abrupt stylistic switch, over-saturated colors shot with an iPhone show Jancey clasping Moonee’s hand as they triumphantly waltz through Disney World one last time.
In a film that excels in both smooth camera movement and still cinematography, the switch to handheld iPhone seemed sudden and disruptive, but it does capture the frivolous nature of childhood. Moonee is deprived of many joys of youth that many take for granted, exemplified best by recurring scenes of her playing in the bath alone in the absence of her mother. The final shot is an uplifting and optimistic recompense to Moonee’s misfortune, but nevertheless executed controversially.
The Florida Project is one of those films which does nearly everything right, but because of an inexplicable reason I felt its emotional resonance was hampered. Film deserves these examinations into the lesser-explored corners of reality, free of extravagant budgets where excellent screenwriting with an ambition to tell stories that have yet to be uncovered. For a film where I occasionally felt the moments of charm and devastation that this film is revered for, it is a shame that my experience did not share the same emotional impact to that of many others.
