The slice-of-life picture may be one of the hardest to get through to mainstream audiences, but the one which may offer the most rewards to the dedicated film buff looking for something different. Rather than going for something big or flashy, these movies tell the more down-to-earth stories of people living their day-to-day lives. These are stories of a more personal drama, the kind that may actually happen to people as opposed to things involving explosions and superpowers.
Point is, I finally got around to seeing The Florida Project.
Young Moonee (Brooklyn Prince) lives in a cheap motel in Florida within sight of DisneyWorld. Her mother (Bria Vinaite) works, initially, as an exotic dancer, and the two get by in a way that suggests Moonee is happily oblivious to her small family’s poverty. She has some friends around the motel and at another nearby, and the motel’s manager Bobby (Willem Defoe in a great performance) is the closest she has to a steady authority figure, a man who lets the kids play but still has to enforce the motel’s rules, even offering protection to the residents from the less savory types who occasionally come by.
Most of the movie is shot from Moonee’s POV, and the camera actually stays at her eye level for those scenes. She’s a wild kid, prone to rude outbursts and shouting, and the first time we see her, she and a friend are spitting on someone’s car and getting caught. But she is still a kid and soon befriends the little girl who got splattered. Likewise, we see her mother is not always the best of influences. When Moonee and her friends accidentally set a nearby abandoned condominium complex on fire, her mother takes her out to watch the blaze as a form of entertainment. Moonee’s friend Scooty’s mother, however, keeps her child away as a sure sign the two mothers will not be friendly too much longer.
Indeed, much of what’s happening around the motel show Moonee generally oblivious to what’s happening with her mother. It’s only when child services shows up at the end that Moonee perhaps finally sees what a precarious position she’s in.
Generally speaking, this was a well-done movie about childhood, and how a kid’s general ignorance can still lead to kid-like behavior. Yeah, Moonee isn’t a model of good behavior, but she’s also six and doesn’t know better, and it’s not like her mom is teaching her good lessons. She’s a carefree kid who already knows how to pull some low level scams and doesn’t quite get why her mom and Scooty’s mom have a falling out. What comes out of this is a kid being a kid despite some terrible personal circumstances, a result that only dawns on her when things go really bad. When she and her newest friend Jancey run off in the end for a trip to a literal fantasy land, it’s a sign of maybe a child retreating from harsh conditions the only way she knows how.
Grade: A-
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