Review of The Florida Project (2017) by Ben Y — 08 Apr 2018

Gorgeous, vibrant, alive, nuanced, multi-layered. Whatever Sean Baker had in mind for this movie came out absolutely beautifully in the end. One of the better childhood movies I've seen.

The acting by the kids was honestly amazing. It's great that they managed to get such lively and realistic performances out of these kids. They were really the heart of this movie, and a giant part of what made it work so well. The authentic little adventures and activities. Besides them, you had the amazing William Dafoe character. He was so smartly written. Just a real, empathic, grounded character with a fascinating role in this story. The way he was handled was also one of the high points of the movie. Finally I'll mention Halley's actress, for whom this was the first acting role. She blew me away. She really brought the mother to life. Such a well done job. Amazing cooperation between the director and these actors.

Another major high point in this movie was the stunning cinematography that brought us to level of the kids. The intimate angles, the low camera positions, the bright saturated colours. All of these formed into one beautiful visual experience that tied itself really well to the effort of bringing an authentic childhood to the screen. I also adored the little iPhone callback to Tangerine in the final sequence of the movie.

The editing was also really well done. It was used masterfully to construct and present the story of The Florida Project. Certain key moments of the movie worked so damn well thanks to the smart editing. It made things work without any dialogue being necessary to explain anything. Just tightly woven shots to convey something.

The music was sparse but also very meaningful and emotional. It heightened lots of key aspects of the movie. Both the licensed music and the original music. The shower scenes and the ending scene were two great moments. The shower scenes in particular were genius with the creeping realization.

It was generally extremely admirable how nuanced and sensitive this movie was to the issues it was portraying, to how it was characterizing everyone. It gave each character a real soul, built them up as real people. It makes you think about what you've seen in terms of poverty, circumstances, nurture and nature, and everything else that stems from these subjects. Tying it all together is an incredibly intelligent emotional core.

A beautiful achievement of a movie.