Review of The Florida Project (2017) by David F — 30 Oct 2017

This film about a colony of people clinging to the margins of Disney World by living in motels and scraping a living has a subtle and sinuous way of getting to you. I think it is mostly through the small kids who are living in this boring world of sparse motel amenities, abandoned developments, and novelty architecture ice cream stands that the film makes its somewhat startling impact.

The mother here is poor and at times desperate but she is also fun-loving, creative, and caring towards her daughter. Her daughter is bored and takes after some of her mother's foul-mouthed and surly antics but her breakdown and escape in the final scene display a deeper layer of emotion, thought, and meaning which brackets the film and its world, recasting everything that's gone before.

This is a startling, shocking, and troubling comment on the American Dream.