"the florida project"

A24

Amidst the backdrop of a destitute welfare hotel located in the outpost of Disney World, filmmaker Sean Baker (of "Tangerine," "Starlet," "Prince of Broadway" and "Greg the Bunny") charts a remarkably earnest and downtrodden glimpse into the lives of unsupervised children, their hustler mothers, and a world still ravaged by the 2008 meltdown. In six-year-old Moonie, played by newcomer Brooklyn Prince, Baker has found his very own Spanky MacFarlane, a precocious young leader — equal parts sweet and cunning, evading adult surveillance with her daytime playmates as they amble from one wayward moment to the next, pitting a divergent genus of working class, what one might call the coping class, on the verge of starvation, well-being and resolve as they seek shelter in a forgotten (and abandoned) America. 

With "The Florida Project," Baker, who co-wrote the script with partner Chris Bergoch, abstains from the three act structure in favor of a more rousing, cinéma verité strolling effect; removing the usual rusty gears of narrative-driven details, he melds his incidents together, inducing a sense of wistful, midsummer juvenile nostalgia. In some ways, it mirrors that of Christopher Nolan's "Dunkirk," with virtually no exposition spoken to advance plot points, favoring character development, imagery, and sweeping 35mm film instead. Baker even admits that many of his favorite films were all shot on film, hence his romanticization for the dying art. Though while it might have seemed counterintuitive for the director (especially when shooting with minors), his persuasive stylistic efforts help bring this shining Florida project to life, an actual welfare motel whose residents are either homeless or uncertain as to when their next paycheck will arrive, let alone meal. 

Which isn't to say the film doesn't drag in certain areas — its two-hour runtime feels needlessly stretched, and the remarkable performances by Prince, her callous and desperate mother Halley (played by Insta starlet Bria Vinaite) and token Hollywood rep Willem Dafoe are indeed genuine in their heartbreak and pathos, but Baker proves to be his own worst enemy as both editor, director, producer and writer. While his efforts should be commended for reflecting America's poverty-stricken underbellies, it is his former picture, "Tangerine" which succeeds most against this editorial backdrop. More cinematically honed in and even-keeled, Baker's punk-rock bevy of non-actors and iPhone cinematography reconciled a vital exposé for the maligned transgender community, which until that point wasn't yet reflected in mainstream film culture.

It was a perfect storm of confluences, and while "Florida" seeks to mine a great deal of empathy for its characters, it never quite captivates as strongly as it should. Moonie's mother's downfall is treated as morbid (and magnetic) entertainment, via the scarlet letter of bankruptcy she's forced to bear. But it also renders her sympathetic to a fault, begrudgingly reminding audiences that being forced to live on the fringes can be just as destructive as living behind bars. Tattoos, alcohol, weed, crack, prostitution — it's all reckoned as a precarious life balance, ingrained within a fragile eco-system that these characters can never quite shake free of. Perhaps if our country stopped treating the poor like lepers, scorning them with vitriol and chastisement at every conceivable turn, we might one day be able to reverse the impasse which aggrieves countless numbers of our fellow countrymen and women, each and every dogged day.

"THE FLORIDA PROJECT" Rated R. Running time: 1 hour 55 minutes.