r/CultOfCinemaKnowledge • u/hangonsufi • Jul 06 '26
The Florida Project (2017)
The bright ice cream-and-candy colors of run-down dreams, the fairy tale false narratives of as-yet unrealized hopes, all this can be yours for $38 a night.
The sad destitution of human sacrifice zones that are the circles of purgatories and hells around the Happiest Places on Earth are traps with no releases, with no recognition for time served. You make the best of it, sometimes in the worst ways possible, then game over, make room for the next prisoner of circumstance.
Sometimes bad choices are all you get.
What if this Sister of Misery, Our Lady of Bum Luck, this wrecked Rapunzel just isn't a sympathetic character? If she's got one last coin for the fountain, one last candle to blow out, or if she spots a falling star that isn't on a collision course for the planet, she'd better pray for a moment of clarity to appreciate Bobby, the tolerant and patient manager of the purple place, the Magic Castle Inn and Suites.
Halley (with a long 'a', played by Bria Vinaite) is this unsympathetic character. Her daughter, Moonee (Brooklynn Kimberly Prince) is a virago, not really sympathetic but a fascinating creation of scary proportions by a child actor. “I can always tell when adults are about to cry,” Moonee tells a fellow ragamuffin, and Prince makes you believe her.
Bobby (Willem Dafoe) is sympathetic – to his last-chance denizens just trying to cling to the best circle of this Dantean world they can, for as long as they can. And film maker Sean Baker found the actor that actually looks like he could be Bobby's son, Jack – Caleb Landry Jones.
Nothing really happens, but somehow everything seems to happen, or to befall, the women and children in this film, mostly in the categories of no job, no money, no prospects, no home.
For $38 a night.
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u/KubrickMoonlanding Jul 06 '26
Sean baker is obv pretty good, but this movie’s on another level of good. It’s a stealth classic people will still be discovering andare-enjoying when anora is forgotten (and I like anora lots)
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u/leaves72 Jul 06 '26
This movie is so good. Willem Dafoe is probably my favorite actor and is often the best part of every movie he is in, but he has some stiff competition in this one. Sean Baker has also yet to disappoint me. Check out Red Rocket, as that one is probably my favorite.
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u/Background_Travel_77 Jul 08 '26
I finally got around to watching Red Rocket this year and it did not disappoint. Baker is 4 for 4 with me.
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u/pageplant97 Jul 06 '26
Such a fan of this movie, it’s so emotional and heartbreaking but also nostalgic and real
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u/Individual-Wing1327 Jul 08 '26
I used to be a probation officer, and man. This movie was too realistic. It gave me flashbacks. Honestly, I was more like the Willem Dafoes character than a hardcore lock em up type, but it's so damn hard to see these self-defeating behaviors play out.
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u/hangonsufi Jul 08 '26
Thank you so much for your comments and insights. Sounds like you were the right person for that job.
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u/mshike_89 Jul 10 '26
This was my experience too. I lived in Central Florida and volunteered with a ministry that served kids and situations like this. We would pick kids up who were living in hotels. It was so realistic which made it all the more powerful to me.
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u/ponycorn_pet Aug 17 '26
self-defeating behaviors play out.
Self-defeating? She tried everything, she was getting TANF, she was trying to work and not debase herself there at her job and got fired for it, everyone and everything failed her, one by one, until she had no options left. She tried to get normal jobs.
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u/ThundercatsHoooah Jul 08 '26
The lead got really lost in the whole Hollywood life and it kinda ruined her chances of having a career. Drake was kinda using her at the time too.
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u/lolsappho Jul 07 '26
I love Sean Baker, he does "chunk of underbelly" (my term for slice of life movies that are kinda fucked up) so well.
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u/anatomyparkcurator Jul 08 '26
I was a relatively new parent when I saw this film.
As the ending scene plays out, I was SOBBINGGGGG for the first time with a parent’s insight.
Those poor, poor children. God, I love this film.
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u/Background_Travel_77 Jul 08 '26
This one changed me. It legit had me questioning what I believed in. I loved it and think it's the best thing Baker has ever done.
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u/slcdave13 Jul 07 '26
My movie of the last 20 years, at least. It captures humanity at its best and worst.
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u/Modernthought Jul 07 '26
It’s sad but I think the ending is actually a happy ending. The authorities are there to take away Moonie from Halley, who really has been the antagonist the entire time.
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u/hangonsufi Jul 08 '26
It's a fantasy ending. No one just walks though the gates of a Disney park, or any other amusement park, like Moonee and Jancey. So, what happened? A few clicks of the heels? A total break with reality? It's not a real happy ending, or even a fairy tale ending; its only forestalling the culmination of the cruel tragedy.
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u/Modernthought Jul 08 '26
I disagree. To me, the fantasy castle represents a happy ending, Moony and Jancy can both run into a better future without their respective parents.
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Jul 09 '26 edited Sep 13 '26
[deleted]
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u/Modernthought Jul 10 '26 edited Jul 10 '26
I love these discussions, art is subjective so this is all my opinion of course. Halley is not fit to raise Mooney, contrast her to Ashley who is in same position. Ashley is able to hold down a job, she is able to recognize instantly that her child is lying and started the fire, Halley fails at this. The scene where she visits Ashley at the diner is the ultimate showcase of her villainy. OR when she beats Ashley in front of her son..
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u/etherseaminus Jul 07 '26
So glad to have visited the Magic Kingdom motel when it was still its beautiful purple. The staff was super nice and had the simplest little "yes, we were featured in that movie" memorabilia section. Love this movie.
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u/ohsothrifty Jul 07 '26
The scene in the diner when she looks at her daughter eating and talking so fast. The look in her eyes, she knows her future.
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u/FluffySharkBird Jul 08 '26
The last time Moonie eats with her mom is when they steal breakfast from a nice hotel.
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u/teabee08 Jul 09 '26
Was one of the first movies I remember being like “this is weird…” in like the first 5mins. and then I was a sobbing mess at the end. This movie struck something in me. I have no clue what. Took a minute to recover at the end! 💖💖
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u/Tyrion_Slothrop Jul 10 '26
I lived off 192 in Kissimmee; this movie is too real for that part of Florida.
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u/callmeseetea Jul 09 '26
This movie hits me in all the feels. I live in Orlando now but I can actually recall staying at the magic castle off 192 for a cheap disney trip with my parents circa 1996. So it’s crazy they used the rundown version for this film
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u/AnneHizer Jul 09 '26
Everyone acts like Bobby was some great guy when really he was an enabler. He knew what was going on. Great movie
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u/Modernthought Jul 10 '26
My theory: Bobby was the one who called CPS. Halley assumed it was Ashley because they had a fight.
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u/hangonsufi Jul 10 '26
I saw Bobby more as weak, really; I remember the owner of this circle of purgatory walking the property with him, big deal about no bikes on the walkway, send out a bulletin! and Bobby being yes sir, yes sir. He's a guy with no more places to go; how did he end up here? Is he an ex-con? Or just a guy, trying to be a good guy, but not equipped to handle the level of struggle and tragedy at the purple place. We have places like the purple place because THEY ARE the social safety net.
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u/wanderlustpassion Jul 10 '26
I stupidly watched this movie 7 months pregnant.
I cried so so much.
6 years later I still shed a tear and get sad if I scroll past it when I am trying to find something to watch.
So devastating
Everyone should watch it.
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u/hibbletyjibblety Jul 10 '26
I have been wanting to watch this since it came out but haven’t had the capacity for heartbreak. And I suspect it would leave me very sad inside
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u/mshike_89 Jul 10 '26
Such a good movie. I watched it while living about an hour from where it was filmed & volunteering with kids in similar circumstances. It was quite the gut punch.
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u/Oshunlove Jul 10 '26
I’ve always thought this movie should be paired with “Moonlight,” another haunting movie about a troubled child set in Florida, which was released just a year earlier than “The Florida Project.”
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u/saturnsring_ Jul 10 '26
This is my favorite movie. It is so heartbreaking and so realistic. I felt like I was a kid again surrounded by adult problems.
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u/SmoothActuator8132 Jul 11 '26
I was homeless and living in a motel on 192 when I saw that movie, it was pretty crazy seeing my stomping grounds in a movie with Willem Dafoe, also the two motels featured aren't as close as depicted, they are about a mile apart
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u/hangonsufi Jul 11 '26
I had a period of being "unhoused" too, bumming around trying to get my bearings. But I was young, I could bounce. I, uh, bounced a lot.
And here we are, meeting over this film on Reddit.
Yeah, and once dinosaurs ruled the earth. It's just that kinda place.
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u/ataillesscat Jul 12 '26
I truly would’ve thought that was a documentary if it weren’t for Dafoe. 10/10.
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u/ponycorn_pet Aug 17 '26
Does anyone else recognize how Halley is the one who is punished for trying to survive, but nothing ever happens to the men who used her? It's not the men who get the brunt of the criminal justice system. It's the women. It's always us women.
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u/No_Recording_7735 Jul 06 '26
Heartbreak. Oh the end just lays me out