Director: Sean Baker
Screenplay: Sean Baker, Chris Bergoch
Starring: Willem Dafoe, Brookylnn Kimberley Prince, Bria Vinaite
Country: United States
Running Time: 111 minutes
Year: 2017
BBFC Certificate: 15
The career of independent film-maker Sean Baker is firmly in the ascendant with his landmark sweep of major awards this year, firstly at Cannes winning the Palme d’Or, then at the Oscars winning Best Picture and Best Director, both for his most recent film “Anora”. Having previously released “Tangerine”, Second Sight has lavished their attention on his follow-up film “The Florida Project”.
More than a slice of life, The Florida Project is an extended immersion into the lives of people living on the margins of society, literally ekeing out an existence in the shadow of the corporate “paradise” of Walt Disney World. Among them are Halley (Bria Vinaite) and her six-year-old daughter Mooney (Brooklynn Kimberely Prince), living hand to mouth at the Magic Castle Inn and Suites, a small, low-rent apartment complex, its gaudy purple exterior shimmering in the heat.
For Mooney, each day is about playtime and fantasy, hanging out with her friend Scooty (Christopher Rivera), Dicky (Aiden Malik), and other kids who pass the summer days with as much play and mischief as they can. These adventures involve turning a walk through fields into a safari, begging passing tourists for ice cream money, or spitting on another parent’s car – an incident which is pivotal as it draws the character of Jancey (Valeria Cotto) into the kids’ ad hoc friendship group. The uneasy alliance between Hallee and Jancey’s grandmother Stacey (Josie Olivo) is another bond that ties the film together, one amongst a series of shifting relationships that are often tested to destruction, with a cast of characters trapped in an environment where empathy and understanding can be in short supply.
At the centre of all of this is Bobby (Willem Dafoe), the good-hearted but permanently harassed manager of the Magic Castle. Dafoe is perfect in this role, a conscientious man who performs countless good deeds without a word of thanks from those around him, and who has more than enough problems of his own. Bobby is the patron saint of practicality for those around him, not above bending his own rules to help out someone in dire need. It is significant that many of the characters only find their small pieces of respite alone or at night, whether it is Mooney relaxing in the bath, Hallee and Ashley out on the town, or Bobby on a twilight cigarette break.
Hallee’s desperation to make ends meet – perpetually on the hustle, pestering her friend Ashley (Mela Murder) for a job at the restaurant she works at, selling discount perfume to tourists – forms the emotional core of the film. Vinaite gives a captivating yet deeply unsettling performance as a single mother barely out of her teens, and as a volatile young woman clearly struggling under the weight of terrible life experiences. Baker and his collaborators convey the immediacy and urgency of poverty with a sharp form of elliptical storytelling. The dangers that might lurk at the edges of people’s lives definitely register, even if they rarely play out onscreen. The inner lives of other residents are hinted at rather than developed, and the transient population of the Magic Castle removes more than a few characters from the viewer before we get any real sense of who they are.
The Magic Castle and the nearby Futureland apartments are full of women and children, but with the exception of Dicky’s dad (Edward “Punky” Pagan), there are no fathers. They are absent, cursed out by those they left behind, or are simply never mentioned. Bobby is as close to a surrogate father that Mooney and the others have, however unwanted that role might be. The ensemble cast are remarkable in each of their roles, but special mention must be made of the extraordinary Brooklynn Kimberley Prince as Mooney. Her radiant and completely unselfconscious performance imbues her character with so much charm and nuance in every moment she is onscreen. Her interactions with Dafoe and Vinaite are especially wonderful.
The film is especially acute on the debilitating effects of hunger amidst poverty. Mooney obsesses over food, and Hallee does what she can, but cannot afford the things that she wants. Neither can she seem to escape the ongoing horror of the American welfare system, nor its brutally negative effects. Their precariousness is under ever greater threat, until the consequences of her actions bring everything crashing down to an utterly heartbreaking climax.
The Florida Project is set for a brand-new Limited Edition Dual 4K/Blu-ray Box Set on 13 October 2025. This deluxe release by Second Sight boasts a vast array of special features:
– Dual format 3 disc edition including 1 UHD and 2 Blu-rays with main feature and bonus features on both formats
– New 4K master produced and approved by Director Sean Baker
– UHD presented in Dolby Vision HDR
Over 4.5 hours of new bonus material:
– New audio commentary with Sean Baker, Co-Writer Chris Bergoch and Director of Photography Alexis Zabé
– New audio commentary by Kat Ellinger and Martyn Conterio
– Success Story: a new interview with Sean Baker
– Playing Within the Frame: a new interview with Actor Willem Dafoe
– A Transformative Experience: a new interview with Actor Bria Vinaite
– The Kids: a new interview with Actors Brooklynn Kimberly Prince, Valeria Cotto and Christopher Rivera
– Origin Story: a new interview with Actor Brooklynn Kimberly Prince
– True Friendship: a new interview with Actor Valeria Cotto
– Overusing Freedom: a new interview with Actor Christopher Rivera
– Embrace the Chaos: a new interview with Co-writer Chris Bergoch
– Clearing the Brush: a new interview with Producer Andrew Duncan
– A Different Way of Shooting: a new interview with Producers Kevin Chinoy and Francesca Silvestri
– A Sense of Imagination: a new interview with Associate Producer Samantha Quan
– Hotel to Home: a new interview with Executive Director of Community Hope Center Rev. Mary Downey
– Streets of 192: a new interview with Casting Coordinator Patti Wiley
– Back to the Castle: On location with Brooklynn Kimberly Prince, Valeria Cotto and Christopher Rivera
– Wretched Splendour: Rohan Spong on The Florida Project
– Under the Rainbow – Making The Florida Project
– Archive Cast & Crew Interviews
– Bloopers & Outtakes
– Limited Edition Contents
– Rigid slipcase with new artwork by Michael Dunbabin
– 160-page hardback book with new essays by Tim Coleman, Martyn Conterio, Elena Lazic, Hannah McGill, Dawn Stronski and Nadine Witney plus on-set photo gallery
– 8 collectors’ on-set photo art cards
The various interviews with cast and crew overlap on many occasions, but everyone fulsomely attests to the special atmosphere of the shoot itself, and to the immense impact the film’s legacy has been for each of them and their careers. The interviews and location revisit with the now teenaged cast are especially charming: Brooklynn Kimberely Prince states endearingly that “Mooney is my origin story”. Sean Baker makes an explicit link between homelessness and capitalism in his in-depth interview, detailing how “The Florida Project” is just one story amongst many about poverty and precarity in America.
The commentaries are complimentary in their approaches. The film-makers’ commentary brings forth a host of stories about the challenges involved in making the film, from the budgetary and location constraints to the process of ‘street casting’, the myriad references to the Disney empire and how many of the film’s finest moments were both unscripted and captured on the fly. The commentary involving Kat Ellinger and Martyn Conterio is a conversational dialogue that draws upon a wealth of knowledge and insight, digressing through a range of subjects including depictions of poverty and the working class in American cinema, the confrontation and defiance of the female characters, and in Ellinger’s case, a fierce critique of Ken Loach’s approach to working class life as “patrician and sentimental”. The depth of affection that both of them have for the film is palpable.
The hardbook was unfortunately not made available for me to review.
Second Sight have created the definitive home cinema release of one of the most exceptional films of the last decade.
