If single mother on-the-slide Halley (Bria Vinaite) is the Titanic, then her resilient daughter on-the-rise  Moonee (Brooklynn Prince) is the band that played on. For the deeper Halley sinks into the icy cold waters of debt and desperation, theft and prostitution, the louder Moonee and her mischievous friends Scooty (Christopher Rivera) and Jancey (Valeria Cotto) rejoice in the thrill of being alive.

Moonee’s t-shirt says it all, really: I’ve decided to be awesome today! As does the opening track: Celebration. But when she runs away to play ‒ “What are you playing?” asks a bemused adult, “We’re just playing,” her equally bemused reply ‒ the camera remains fixed on an off-pink brick wall for nigh on thirty seconds which suggests that the happy-clappy lyrics of Kool & the Gang’s chart-topping hit should be taken with a pinch of salt.

“There’s a party going on right here,” they rejoice. And given the fairytale setting of Moonee’s temporary residence at Magic Castle, which is just off Seven Dwarfs Lane and adjacent to The Future Land Inn where visitors can “stay in the future today”, who can blame her for having a spring in her step.

The trouble is, the pool has a dead fish in it; the elevators stink of piss; people run over one another in the parking lot; the reception window has a bloodied tampon in place of a “have a nice day” sticker; and far from happy Happy Meals come courtesy of food banks, begging and theft.

“At the end of the rainbow is gold,” says Moonee. That may be. But not on the rain-sodden patch where she and her mother are “not waving but drowning”. And it’s little wonder that Halley looks at the merry-go-round of golf tourists and Disneyland-bound families, who spend more in a day than she earns in a month, and thinks to herself what a character from one of Moonee’s favourite TV shows says aloud: “I wish you could be me for one day.”

The American Dream is very much under the microscope. And though director Sean Baker and his fellow screenwriter Chris Bergoch adopt a neutral fly-on-the-wall approach and invite the audience to make up their own minds on whether life is indeed “better and richer and fuller for everyone”, it is obvious that the dream is a nightmare for many, perhaps most.

At first glance, it is easy to think of Halley as one of Hilary Clinton’s “deplorables” and Moonee as one of the “adorables”, but the more you walk in their shoes the more you realise that Halley was Moonee once and, just as sad, Moonee might grow up to follow in her mother’s wayward footsteps.

In addition to the firecracker dialogue which has a strong improvisational and comedic feel to it ‒ Why did the children throw water balloons at tourists? “They didn’t tip us.” ‒ the cinematography by Alexis Zabe is striking and thought-provoking.

Particularly the ending, which burns in the mind and stirs the soul; the gigantic advertising boards and humongous fast food shacks before which Moonee and her diminutive friends hop, skip and jump as they badger thunder thigh tourists with thunder thigh wallets to part with a nickel; and the arresting image of Moonee and a friend sitting on her favourite tree which, like her, is uprooted but “still growing”.

With a budget of $2 million, half that of this year’s Oscar-winning picture Moonlight, The Florida Project is in the same vein and just as good. But the real focus is not on the gongs or the cast (which includes Willem Dafoe), but the fate of the fictional and real-life American Dreamseekers who live from hand to mouth in the shadow of Cinderella Castle

Video curtesy of: A24

Director: Sean Baker

Writers: Sean Baker, Chris Bergoch

Stars: Brooklynn Prince, Bria Vinaite, Willem Dafoe

Peter Callaghan
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