Florida on Film: The Florida Project
Florida on Film: The Florida Project
By Paige Stanish
Florida is a real and unapologetic place. Though the Florida depicted on film sometimes only serves as the background, in some films, its reality is at the forefront. The Florida Project (2017) explicitly explores the reality of Florida in a place of fantasy.
Florida has long been a prime destination for retirement and vacation. While retirees flock to all parts of Florida for its warm weather and laissez-faire attitude, most tourists have a specific spot in mind–Orlando, the Theme Park Capital of the World. Tourists and Floridians alike swarm to theme parks like Disney World for a family-friendly getaway that is guaranteed, manufactured fun, micromanaged down to the last nine-dollar churro. People can even immerse themselves further into the fairytale simulation by meeting Cinderella herself. And when their vacation is over, they can go back home and wish that the driveway magically transformed into a drawbridge, leading to a castle. There are, however, Floridians who live on the outskirts of Mickey's ever-expanding magical kingdom, who never get to experience it, but do call the area home. Sean Baker’s film The Florida Project portrays the dichotomy between the hyper-reality of the happiest place in the world and the darkness that surrounds it, while conveying that Florida has always been a place for escape.
Moonee is a six-year-old girl living with her struggling single mother Halley in the Magic Castle Inn and Suites in Kissimmee, just miles away from Cinderella’s castle in Magic Kingdom. Peeled purple paint, bed bug-riddled mattresses, cigarette smoke—this seedy motel is Moonee’s safe haven. The Magic Castle Inn is a remnant of Florida’s past—a dark pastel purple of the 90s. Here, Moonee and her friends Scooty and Jancey wreak absolute havoc on the motel and its tenants, usually leaving motel manager Bobby to reprimand them for their acts of mischief and sometimes downright illegality. Bobby, played by Willem Dafoe, is the voice of reason throughout the film, who keeps watch over Halley and Moonee and her ragtag crew.
Shot similarly to a documentary, the film follows Moonee and her friends around on their adventures of a hot Florida summer, in clear contrast with the classic Floridian summer trip to Disney happening down the road from them for hundreds of thousands of children. Nevertheless, their days are filled with magic and laughter while they partake in their favorite schemes like conning a woman for an ice-cream cone, playing bellhop for tourists in hopes of a tip, and watching a topless resident sunbathe.
A major theme of The Florida Project is the endurance of imagination and fantasy amid troubling times, which is reinforced by the aesthetics of Kissimmee. Moonee and her mother live in poverty–in a type of housed-homelessness. Halley pays the rent on a week-by-week basis, and they are required to leave “the purple place,” as Moonee calls it, every so often for twenty-four hours so as to not establish residency. Moonee and Scooty pick up free food from the back door of a run-down diner where Scooty’s mom Ashley works. The tedious struggles of their day-to-day lives are missions in the minds of Moonee and her friends. Walking from the motel to the back door of the diner is an adventure which includes the tasty delicacy that is a packet of maple syrup for Moonee’s pancakes.
A glaring and overarching message in Sean Baker’s film is that within the dichotomy that is Orlando, there lies one ‘real’ Florida. Two Florida’s exist in this space—a ‘fake’ vacation land of the “happiest place on Earth” (which we never really see) and the ‘real’ impoverished world struggling right outside of it. The ‘real’ Florida is not one of magic, but rather one of hurt and hardship, a world of just barely getting by. This world is painted over with bright pastels, hiding the dark truth that is embedded in its foundation. This message is explicitly conveyed through the aesthetics of the motels in the film. Magic Castle Inn and Suites, Futureland Inn—these brightly named and painted motels are mere tourist ploys that attempt to hide the sad reality of poverty that they house. These motels mimic the hyper-realistic Disney hotels in an attempt to pull and stretch Mickey’s magic past its parameters—an attempt to blend in and cover up the suffering.
Florida is a land of contrasts. It rains often in the Sunshine State. Poverty lives outside of a multi-billion-dollar corporation. The name of one of the richest cities translates to “rat’s mouth” (Boca Raton). And despite its illusion of fantasy, Florida still has a very real and magical attraction. It is a top retiree destination in the United States and where many snowbirds buy up second homes. In a land of such contradictions, would dubbing Florida a top tourist destination be minimizing the experiences of the state’s impoverished people, some of who are directly harmed by tourism? Or would defining Florida by its poverty only reduce the whole state to just that? While The Florida Project painstakingly reflects the former, Florida should be defined as a conglomeration of its contrasts.
The Florida Project leans into classic Florida tropes. It conjures up white trash, a free-for-all and lawless attitude, and an overall unusual atmosphere. Though this definitely reflects some of Florida’s essence, they do not fully capture Florida. Part of Florida’s unusualness lies in its heterogeneity and the contrasts seen throughout its population. The Florida Project depicts a major hub of Florida, Orlando, with people and places that vary drastically from other major hubs, such as Miami or West Palm Beach. Judging Florida based solely on these tropes, or this location, excludes large parts of its diverse population, part of what makes Florida so unique.
However, the trope of escape in The Florida Project is one that is ingrained into the very existence of Florida, from the time that it was a Spanish colony. Florida is a place of escape—whether that escape is a family vacation to a fake kingdom, a retirement home in Naples, or a walk from the motel to the diner’s back door to pick up pancakes and syrup. At the end of the film, Moonee quite literally, or figuratively, escapes to Magic Kingdom, explicitly illustrating this idea. Many non-native Floridians find that to be somewhat true of their journey to the state. Florida is one of the fastest growing states in the country for a reason.
From the style, to the visuals, to the story—The Florida Project was a success with fans and critics, winning many awards and widespread acclaim. People rave about Sean Baker’s heartbreaking portrayal of poverty through the lens of a wide-eyed six-year-old. The film uncovered this struggle in a seemingly unlikely area, a struggle probably unbeknownst to non-Floridians and even to some Floridians. The Florida Project leaves much of the state unrepresented because it hones in on an extremely specific circumstance in Florida. However, the film was able to fully convey the tropes and nuances that are associated with, and can come with living in, the strange place that is the Theme Park Capital of the World.
Paige Stanish is a history graduate from Palm Beach Atlantic University, where she published poetry in the Living Waters Review. She lives in, and watches movies in, South Florida.
