The Florida Project (2017) Feed And Activity

justjoia added their review for The Florida Project: (Possible Spoilers)I was absolutely blown away by The Florida Project, written and directed by Sean Baker (Tangerine). The film is so raw that it feels like a documentary. There really is no story, it's more of a slice of life of a 6 year old named Moonee, played by Brooklynn Prince, her mother Halley, played by Bria Vinaite, and her little hooligan friends over one summer.The film itself is utterly and completely beautiful. The colors are so vibrant, you feel like you are in Florida with them. It takes place somewhere very close to the Disneyparks as we see when Halley takes her young daughter onto Disney Resorts property to trespass and sell discounted perfumes to unsuspecting tourists in order to avoid homelessness. The duo are very close to living on the street throughout the film as we see Halley struggle to pay her weekly rent for a room in the motel where they live. "The Florida Project" is a painfully accurate depiction of how many are living in central Florida as well as south Florida. My own children have played with transient children, much like Moonee, who were living in the campgrounds we were visiting during our weekend adventures. There was a scene where one child had to give away all his toys to the motel kids who were staying behind while he moved out of state with his parents because there wasn't room for them in the car. I have seen that exact situation played out with my own eyes in real life. Bria Vinaite did a fantastic job portraying a white trash exotic dancer who would literally do anything to keep a roof over her daughter's head.The cinematography was absolutely amazing. The beauty of the Florida sky was juxtaposed with the harsh reality for the people we were watching throughout the film. The children actors (Brooklynn Prince, Christopher Rivera, Aiden Malik, and Valeria Cottodid a phenomenal job as an ensemble and I wonder how they got the kids to be so natural. I suspect a lot of it was ad libbed. These children were horribly behaved as they have little or no adult supervision throughout the day. All of the adults are clearly negligent and we see several scenes where they harass the motel manager played by Willem Dafoe. Dafoe does an excellent job portraying a man who has to walk a fine line between doing his job and having empathy for the guests in the motel. He tries to have a tough exterior, but he clearly has a heart and it's shown in the few scenes he begrudgingly participates in the children's shenanigans. My only complaint about Defoe and this role is that he is too clean. It is apparent that they are in the hot Florida sun, in the middle of summer, in a weekly hotel, without central ac. He should have been sweatier. It was a tiny detail that shattered my belief that we were watching something real.I really enjoyed this movie and it made me sad. My eyes soaked up the beauty of this film like the cracked earth soaks up a summer rain. Unfortunately, I hated the ending. It ended super abruptly, like the Sopranos. One minute I'm near tears from the drama on the screen, the next I am saying, "WTF?" Overall this was excellent story telling that left me wanting more.