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The Florida Project is a 2017 film written and directed by Sean Baker that explores the lives of impoverished families living in motels and backlots just outside of the Florida Disney World premises. The plot closely follows the rambunctious six year old, Moonee, and her young mom, Halley, as her mom has just lost her job as a stripper and is struggling to pay bills without getting close to trouble with the law and self-destructing the relationships around her. Moonee, being a kid, just wants to go on adventures with her friends, Scooty and Jancey, and avoid getting in trouble with their mischievous endeavors.
Baker made the film with very practical editing as to heavily emphasize the realism in the narrative. The mise-en-scene of the film is completely realistic, as they shot the film on location in actual motels just outside of Disney World where helicopters whirl around the buildings and some actual locals present in the film, Scotty being played by an actual local motel frequenter. The film was majorly shot on 35mm film with some of it shot on an iPhone 6S, for shot sizes an overall aspect ratio of 2.39:1. Most of the film is shot in observational and objective camera angles so the viewer can get a sense of the depth of field around the subjects. Only two scenes in the entire film use non-diegetic sound — once at the very beginning to set the tone of Moonee’s adventures and once at the very end to wrap up the film in a way that evokes the heavy emotional consequences in a montage of Jancey and Moonee running while holding hands — which is able to put the viewer into an immersive experience of the film.
A specific scene that I found to convey the energy of the film most effectively occurs when there’s about 30 minutes left to run. A Disney World tourist who had just slept with Halley, heavily implied to have been an act of prostitution, is banging on her motel door asking for his Magic Band passes back, which Halley had stolen from his bag and sold to another tourist in a previous scene for rent money. Bobby, the manager of the motel played by Willem Dafoe, notices the unidentified man banging and asks him to leave the premises if he is not a guest at the motel. The tourist then explains the situation to Bobby and then he asks Halley to open the door. Halley denies knowing the man and Bobby respectfully asks him to leave. During this conflict, Moonee watches them with the TV running in the background as she curiously asks questions throughout about what is going on to understand the situation. The tourist claims the stealing was grand larceny, as the bands amounted to $1.7k altogether, but Bobby mediates by reminding him that he would have to file a police report stating how the tourist was involved with Halley, how his wife and children, who the bands were for, would inevitably find out about the affair. The man leaves, claiming the motel to be a dump on the way out. Halley closes the door, saying to Bobby, “About time you make yourself useful!” as Moonee asks if the tourist came back to pee again (Moonee was hiding in the tub as he had to pee when he was over the first time). Bobby then makes Halley open the door again and gives her an ultimatum where all of her visitors must check in at the front desk. She throws a tantrum as the camera follows them outside and she yells at Moonee to get back inside of their room. A jump cut in between the argument as they’re walking down winding stairs emphasizes how their conversation is spiralling and she yells at a passerby who is watching “‘f*ck you looking at, Tina?!” The winding camera continues to circle around them and gives us a dizzying feeling as the screen directions push the subjects onto the main ground and into the motel lobby, where Bobby threatens to kick her out of the motel if she keeps arguing with him about his new mandate. She runs out and slams a used panty liner against the window of the lobby.
The film is complex within itself and the realities presented that often aren’t discussed in mainstream media. It may be considered an analysis of the relationships within the lower income communities and the shaming that comes from the upper class counterparts who just want to go to the tourist attractions. The Florida Project manages to create a majorly unmanipulated portrait of an American demographic that is often kicked to the curb and neglected without being given opportunity to grow from their hardships.
