The Florida Project: An Exercise in Perspective

In the next few days (or weeks, months, however long it takes me to get this idea out of my system), I'm planning on going on something of an A24 marathon that may or may not get interrupted by a trip to the theater to watch Twisters (a review for that particular film is hopefully coming soon). So, in the near future, I wouldn't be surprised if my feed on this blog becomes all A24 entries for an as-for-now unspecified amount of time. For those of you unfamiliar with A24, they're the world's largest creator and distributor of independent films, and if you're into arthouse tendencies in your movies, then A24 is the company you should be rolling with. In addition to that, they're also the company that created the film that won Best Picture at the Oscars in 2022, Everything Everywhere All At Once, a name that you may recognize. For as much as a couple of their preferred artistic tendencies can annoy me from time to time, they are one of the few creators of solid and original content in the world of cinema today, and the cult following they've garnered is something I would argue is absolutely rightfully earned. Today, I sat down to watch one of their films, titled The Florida Project. I went into the movie almost entirely blind, and now that I've come out on the other side of it, I wanted to give my thoughts on the movie, but first, the largely spoiler-free synopsis.

The Florida Project follows Moonee and Scooty, two very naughty little kids who live in a motel under the not-so-watchful eye of Halley, Moonee's biological and single mother, who dabbles in the illicit sex trade to make money. It chronicles their adventures in the motel and their childlike and naive perspective of all the questionable activity that goes on in the motel.

To circle back to the idea of perspective in this film, more or less limiting what we see to what Moonee and Scooty know about the world was an absolute stroke of genius that I'm surprised more movies about darker, harder, and bleaker themes don't use. This movie is effectively the story of an adult's world seen through a child's eyes, and I frankly couldn't look away. The Florida Project understandably relies on a lot of insinuation and uses subtle but somewhat obvious hints like Halley asking Moonee to take a bath whenever she has "guests" over, a helicopter that flies people to and from the motel, and Halley and Mooney taking "swimsuit selfies" together to punch in some frankly really saddening hints that just pile up on each other one after the other. We, the audience, obviously know what's going on, but Moonee doesn't, and I don't know whether that makes me feel better or worse about her situation. What I do know is that it's an effective narrative tactic, and that's more than good enough for me. Grounding these harsh truths in reality even further is the uncompromisingly character-centric story this film tells. This movie isn't as concerned about stringing a big, complicated, multi-faceted epic together so much as it is chronicling the lives of those less fortunate than the rest of us. And for as many narrative issues as this caused, it was undeniably effective on the emotional front. Bolstering this approach is absolutely fantastic acting from everyone involved, most notably from Bria Vinaite as Halley. She absolutely disappeared into her role, and I frankly forgot that I was watching an actress after maybe a half hour. The performances across the board, including everyone from Willem Dafoe as Bobby, the grouchy but good-hearted owner of the motel that Halley lives at, to Brooklyn Prince as Moonee and the rest of the child actors by extension, were simply fabulous, but the best performance in the movie is by far Vinaite's, and I want to give extra credit where extra credit is due.

As far as the technical aspects of the film go, I was very impressed by cinematographer Alexis Zabe's command of natural light and his use of anamorphic lenses, camera lenses that more or less imitate the way the human eye actually sees things. The use of color in the movie was interesting, with a different color denoting each different location in The Florida Project. Some interesting stylistic liberties were taken by the filmmakers as well, most notably a near-complete lack of an original score. This may annoy some more casual viewers, but if you're the type who watches a lot of movies, I think that you'll appreciate a lot of these more eccentric choices for the ways they enhance the immersion of the movie while also setting The Florida Project apart from other films. As far as the actual story of the movie goes, I think that this is definitely it's biggest flaw. The Florida Project is more or less a sequence of events, and while I can understand that the creators of the movie ran with this narrative choice to heighten the sense of reality and groundedness they were trying so hard to achieve, it also caused the film to meander aimlessly more often than I would have liked. I like to say that a good movie is always trying to end itself, but one thing that I noticed in The Florida Project is that it never really had its climax in mind, which is a flaw that I am going to have to dock the movie some points for. But, all of that said, The Florida Project is a good movie that does a lot of interesting things with seemingly mundane yet tragic circumstances. It's a film that I can heartily endorse from a characterization perspective, and another win for A24, who I personally hope takes over the Hollywood landscape so that I don't have to complain about big franchise films anymore, because as long as they can maintain their reputation as a flashpoint for originality and creativity, I will happily watch just about anything they put out, regardless of the actual quality. But in the case of The Florida Project, there's quality to spare. Now, be aware that this movie does have some objectional content in it that comes with its sleazy subject matter, namely a lot of coarse language - a surprising amount of it coming from children, heavy sexual undertones, some mild sexual overtones like Halley taking "swimsuit selfies" with Mooney in the room (which I mentioned earlier), as well as an older woman who is reprimanded by Bobby for sunbathing topless in one scene (camera angles obscure any graphic nudity, and I can't exactly say that the older woman was, uh, arousing), and some heavy topics that will probably sit with you very uncomfortably, but it's not the worst movie I've ever seen content-wise, and I personally hope that you give this film a try, provided you understand that it's not suitable for all ages. The Florida Project, when everything was said and done, turned out to be an original, well-written, and thought-provoking piece of cinema that is easily one of the better movies I've seen put out by A24.

The Florida Project - 8/10

Proverbs 19:17