Steeped in glorious colour under the warm glow of a Florida sun, Sean Baker’s The Florida Project is as indelible and warm as it looks.
The film opens with a boy running towards a purple hotel, calling out for his friends Moonee (Brooklynn Prince) and Scooty (Christopher Rivera). These two six-year-old rapscallions are off school for the summer and on the lookout for fun and games, one of which is to spit on newcomers’ cars at the neighbouring hotel. And that’s how they meet a potential new gang member in Jancey (newcomer Valeria Cotto). She’s all innocence and mild manners, and has the strong maternal presence of her grandma whereas the others are left to run wild. Moonee’s blue-haired and heavily tattooed mum Halley (Bria Vinaite) is little more than a girl herself and we can see where Moonee gets her manners and proclivity for swearing from.
As the camera follows the children on their adventures, like contemporary Huck Finns, Baker focuses on the architecture and colour of their territory. Disney World lies tantalisingly close, but their own playground is made up of huts shaped like oranges, pastel-coloured houses and the magical violet kingdom that is their hotel home. What makes Baker’s film stand out is that normally these motels and cheap hotels that become not-so-temporary homes for the disenfranchised and the poor represent places of despair and of fear (think Midnight Cowboy or 99 Homes), but here – at least for the children – the hotel is simply home and the surroundings a haven of freedom and adventure. There is a sense of camaraderie between many of the hotel dwellers and also of parents trying really hard to do right by their children and keep them on the straight and narrow despite their precarious living conditions. And what a joy it is to see children roaming freely: rather than viewing them as abandoned or neglected, the film celebrates their chance to wander and get up to mischief with nary a parent in sight. It’s a reminder that this is what most children up until the 1970s and 1980s experienced and that it is only in recent years that children’s freedoms have been curbed. Just like Huck and Tom, or Scout and Jem, these children run free with adults on the periphery.
One of those adults is the hotel manager Bobby (Willem Dafoe). He runs the hotel with compassion for his customers and an exasperated patience with the rowdy kids. There is a great scene when Moonee and Jancey hide from Scooty under Bobby’s desk. As he shouts at them to ‘watch out for the wires’ we see his computer and keyboard leap in poltergeist fashion a few inches across his desk. More importantly, he is the children’s protector and there is a scene with an unwanted visitor that is a tour de force piece of acting and directing.
Yet Moonee’s world is not all sunshine and ice cream. Her mum desperately struggles to pay the rent, grifting and worse to keep a roof over their heads. She is no saint and is given plenty of flaws, but essentially we see she is a decent and loving mum. This is Vinaite’s first role and she is totally credible as the feisty, immature mom and a scene involving a sanitary towel is one of the funniest acts of rebellion I’ve seen. Yet it is Prince as Moonee who carries the film and steals your heart. Her independent spirit and fearlessness belie her years, so when Baker reveals her vulnerability it comes almost as a shock. I would love to know how Baker worked with the child actors to get such amazing performances. After one particularly naughty episode, Moonee has to pose for a photo for her mum, and the look on her face is a comedy masterstroke.
There is so much to love about this film, from the colours to the stand-out performances. It’s no coincidence that Baker chooses Kool & the Gang’s Celebration to open the film for it is an ode to all those forgotten parents and children, as well as a celebration of their resilience and humanity.
