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Set over one summer, the film follows precocious 6-year-old Moonee as she courts mischief and adventure with her ragtag playmates and bonds with her rebellious but caring mother, all while living in the shadows of Disney World.
I wonder what Walt Disney would make of Orlando now, nearly fifty years after the opening of Disney World. “The Florida Project” is a documentary time capsule of present-day cleverly disguised as a feature film about what particular parts of the Orlando area have evolved into since 1971 – the year the first Disney park opened there. While the trailer suggests many moments of humor (which there are) no one would mistake this film for a comedy.
If you’ve ever been to Orlando, you may have noticed how the quality of the lodging establishments deteriorates as one ventures farther from the theme parks, south of the Osceola Parkway and into the Kissimmee area. This is the seamy underbelly of the Disney juggernaut, rarely – if ever – seen by most of the patrons who frequent the parks.
Willem Dafoe is Bobby, the manager of a motel, which serves as the centerpiece for the film. Dafoe gives a delightful and endearing performance – one the Academy will likely remember this January. Indeed, the entire cast is superbly suited to their parts, though it is Brooklynn Prince as Moonee, who is the star and steals the show.
Moonee’s mother, Halley, is played by Bria Vinaite. We don’t know much about Halley’s backstory other than a previous arrest record, but then a hundred stories of a troubled childhood could have resulted in her arrival in Orlando. One can only wonder if Moonee’s future will be even more tragic that her mom’s has turned out to be.
Halley’s sometime friend, Ashley, played by Mela Murder, is struggling to get by in a minimum wage waitressing job. She is “playing by the rules” in order to support her family, but like so many others in our society, the odds are clearly stacked against her. Ashley’s situation is juxtaposed against Halley’s, who supports herself and her daughter as a part-time prostitute in-between selling knock-off designer perfume or panhandling at the upscale resorts closer to Disney World.
Everyone has his or her role to play in this sordid ecosystem of human society, and every interaction seems to have a price tag associated with it. Tourist John partakes of Halley’s wares and has his $1,700 Disney MagicBands stolen in the process. Not surprisingly, we later learn that the bands were intended for Tourist John, his wife, and two children and that no doubt he will have some explaining to do when he gets home.
Then there’s the Ticket-Buying Dad who readily buys the purloined bands for $400 from Halley – but only after trying to bargain the price down even further. Halley immediately pockets the money, pays the next week’s rent at the purple hotel Bobby manages, and goes on a spending spree with Moonee, squandering the remaining funds. Easy come easy go.
Having recently been involved in much research regarding inequality in the US – perhaps best captured in Thomas Piketty’s masterwork “Capital in the Twenty-First Century” – it seems likely that rich and poor segments of society are on an inevitable collision course. In the case of “The Florida Project,” the film focuses on the bottom rung of the 99 percenters. Only briefly do we catch a glimpse of anyone resembling the upper or middle classes.
The deteriorating and disposable nature of modern-day American society is manifested when Moonvee and her two friends take a tour through the abandoned condos nearby. Here we can see that the Everglades seem to want to “take back” the land on which the manmade structures were constructed not so long ago. Vegetation is starting to cover the brick sidewalks and is creeping up the building’s walls. Even in Bobby’s motel parking lot, he must politely shoo away three very large sandhill cranes, who seem to be confused by the fact that humans have decided to live in their habitat.
The consumer culture exemplified by Orlando, but typical of most of the country is put on graphic display in “The Florida Project.” The splashy, surreal color schemes of many of the Orlando settings are fascinating to behold. However, the visual opulence and heartwarming antics of the youngsters are merely the sugar needed to make it easier to swallow the distasteful medicine of a dysfunctional society, where considerations of long-term sustainability – either of people or their habitat – seem to be in short supply.
The Hopi and Zuni tribes in the US – descendants of the ancient Anasazi that lived in what is now New Mexico – marvel at American extravagance and excess. Their tribes flourished for hundreds of years – well before the arrival of Columbus. The Native Americans say they were here centuries before Europeans arrived and will be here long after we’re gone. Who knows – they may be right.
The searing social commentary rates five stars, but the meandering plotline and somewhat lengthy runtime of nearly two hours tempers the story’s impact. “The Florida Project” is a cautionary tale about how a consumer-obsessed culture, with its increasing degrees of inequality, is driving society in an unhealthy direction that no one could have imagined – not even Walt Disney.
In theaters Friday, October 20th
