If you can’t get to a theme park right now, here’s another kind of roller coaster to try. The Florida Project is simultaneously optimistic, funny, and tragic, and is well worth the ride. First released in 2017, it is now available to watch on Netflix. Director Sean Baker provides an honest glimpse into the not-so-magical world of the residents of the Magic Castle motel, just outside Orlando. The film is told through the vantage point of six-year-old Moonee (Brooklyn Prince) who lives with mother Halley (Bria Vinaite) in room 323.
The movie feels more like a documentary than a work of fiction, because it takes no artistic liberties. Though Moonee and Halley are fictional characters, their trying lives are lived by many. In Moonee, we see the carefreeness of youth juxtaposed with the grim reality of an impoverished childhood. Her life is neither overly romanticized nor judged with disdain. 
Baker brings his audience along with Moonee on her summer break adventures. With her friends, Moonee shares ice cream cones, throws water balloons at tourists, and burns down abandoned condos (really). With her mother, she sells stolen Disney World passes and knock off perfumes to tourists. The colors of her Disney-themed surroundings are artificially vibrant and unsettling when set against the grit of her life. The camera runs with Moonee around the bright-purple motel as she describes the residents of each unit; “There’s the man that gets arrested a lot… There’s the man that stinks up the elevator… And there’s the woman that thinks she’s married to Jesus.” The film certainly has uplifting moments. Moonee’s young energy is captured in shots of her pink Converse running along the pavement and in close, personal shots of her wide smile, still full of baby teeth. But these sweet, playful scenes alternate with ones where she displays startling profanity and impudence that speaks of a storied upbringing. 
The film also captures the diversity of the motel’s residents. Halley is hard to sympathise with. She is extremely rude, even to those who help her, and is a blatantly reckless parent. In neighbor Ashley (Mela Murder), however, we see another single mother, a far better one than Halley. She is a diligent waitress and is the best mother she can be to her son. We are reminded that poverty is not incompatible with dignity or responsibility. The other residents are able to differentiate between the two, even from a distance, showing collective contempt toward Halley.
Vinaite’s portrayal of deviant Halley is superb. Everything about her performance is convincing, from her smug smirks to her furious screaming matches over late rent with manager Bobby (Willem Dafoe). Her interactions with Moonee are fascinating. In her smiles and through her angry tears, we see her love for her daughter. Nonetheless she is unfit to raise a child, and that is the sad truth. Vainaite expresses her chaotic display of pure emotion perfectly.
Dafoe’s acting is also strong. He plays the authoritative and effective building manager, but is also kind and deeply empathetic. He offers Moonee and her friends smiles as they prance through his lobby, but his tired smiles mask the sorrow he feels for them.
I couldn’t help but marvel at the vast socioeconomic disparities the film outlines. Every once in a while, a helicopter full of tourists roars and the fireworks of Disney World crackle, and there is an abrupt reminder of another, parallel universe, one where families spend 50 nights’ worth of Halley’s rent on day passes to Disney World. The Magic Castle families have no interaction with their middle and upper-class counterparts, except for the occasional misguided tourists whose bad travel agents thought they’d booked a stay at a more glamorous “Magic Castle.”
The Florida Project is just as relevant today as it was the day it hit theaters. I recommend taking a two-hour break from your life in Piedmont to catch a glimpse of Moonee’s. Maybe disputes among friends, taking the SAT, and writing your college essays will seem less distressing.
