The Florida Project

Motel manager “Bobby” (Willem Dafoe) tends to turn a bit of a blind eye to a few of his longer-term residents so long as they toe the line and don’t disturb the equilibrium of things at their residence a stone’s throw from the Walt Disney estate in Orlando. One such beneficiary of this benign attitude is “Halley” (Bria Vinaite) who lives, largely on welfare and her wits, with her feisty young daughter “Moonee” (Brooklynn Prince). They are regularly a pain in his neck, but he knows that they aren’t going to do any real harm and that, more importantly, they have nowhere else to go. As the summer months arrive, though, “Halley” begins to bite the hands that feed her just once to often and when her attitude starts to attract the attention of the authorities - concerned about the well-being of her daughter, things start to become harder and harder for this couple to stay together and for “Bobby” to continue to help out. It’s quite ironic that this glorified homeless hostel sits so closely to the wonders of the Disney castle, and that contrast is well made. Unfortunately I just found, though, that this woman was just too much the architect of her own predicament to engage with and even though I could appreciate the efforts of the well-meaning “Bobby”, I found my interest in this family dwindling as the constant stream of expletives and thoughtless behaviour rendered the whole thing uninteresting. The acting from Vinaite and Prince is compellingly natural, especially towards the denouement, but somehow I felt that I ought to have cared more about their situation and any solution way more than I actually did. Is it supposed to be an indictment of a hopeless/helpless working class? If it is, it merely succeeds in depicting an obnoxious woman who has little interest in compromising or improving her own lot in life in an irritatingly “entitled millennial” sort of fashion. Dafoe doesn’t really say much - not that he gets much opportunity, and when he does he doesn’t really develop his character sufficiently. Too much is left to our own perceptions of and sympathies for these people and I just didn’t want to bother after the umpteenth bout of adult petulance. “Halley” might be trying to protect her daughter, but that kind of protection nobody needs - six years old or no and the angry and aggressive writing here just made me turn off.