The Florida Project (2017)

I have read several of the high star rated reviews and still cannot understand why this film is so highly rated.Both my daughter and I went to see this film as a " Screen Unseen " (This is where you go to see a film at a reduced cost but don't know what film is being shown)Because of the reduced cost these showings attract a large amount of people.When the film started the cinema was around three quarters full after the first 10 mins people started to leave (this is not unusual)by the end of the film there was only around a third of the original number remaining (including my daughter and myself this is unusual)The ending was so strange it was as if someone had just cut off the film with no explanation and a big WHAT! came from the remaining audience, A total waste of 2 hours of my life see it at your peril.

Fmovies: Let me start with a positive. I absolutely loved Tangerine, it had soul, it had heart, and above all it had emotion. By the end of the film you seriously cared for the characters.

However, this film had the completely opposite effect on me. From the first minute until the last, this was an uncomfortable watch. Not because of the subject matter, but because of the cringe factor. The kids were annoying little brats, the mum was an arsehole who got worse, the friend was an arsehole. The only adult who wasn't one was William Dafoe.

Using the kids ad libbed acting as a juxtaposition against the more seedy element of the film just felt like a cheap trick.

I thought this was going to be one of best films of the year, its actually one of the worst.

I had been looking forward to seeing this new film directed by Sean Baker ever since reading the rave reviews for it that came out of Cannes and Toronto. While I can say that this film is beautifully filmed and features strong acting, it doesn't quite hit the mark. The film is about a poor young girl, raised by a single mother, and her friends who live in a run-down motel close to Disney World near Orlando, Florida.

Baker uses a simple and low-key filmmaking style to deliver excellent cinematography. The film has a strong and commanding color palette to its simple aesthetic. The performances on display in this movie are very satisfying for the most part. The child actors do a very good and convincing job, especially given their ages. Williem Dafoe is very good as the manager of the motel, although it would have been better if he had been given more of an emotional range to work with in his role throughout the movie. Unfortunately, the film does have some notable flaws. The tone of the movie is all over the place, with joyous childhood wonder juxtaposed sometimes abruptly with more edgy and mature themes. Such abrupt changes in tone and motif hold back the movie's message to some degree. Some audiences will dislike that the movie is considerably darker than its trailers make it seem, although I was fine with that. The same concern over abrupt changes in tone is also evident in the movie's writing, mixing puerile scatological 'jokes' from the kids with more sophisticated and powerful material. Finally, the film's final scene feels like a cop-out. Without giving anything away, the way it is done also makes one (unfortunately) wonder if it was filmed on impulse, or if the filmmakers ran out of budget.

I really wanted to love "The Florida Project," and it's certainly not a bad film, but I just wish it could have been better. 6.5/10

The Florida Project fmovies. The Florida Project is the third feature film from writer-director Sean Baker and, while being an improvement over Tangerine and Starlet, The Florida Project is still missing the heart it needs to be an everlasting and impactful film. From his cinematic conception, Baker has had a knack for showing very dingy lifestyles bursting with a color palate that would make George Miller weep. But underneath the colorful array that he includes is a superficial mess of a film. One that thinks it is smarter and more heartfelt than it really is.

Telling the story of a young girl living in a by-the-hour motel ran by a seedy motel manager (Willem DaFoe) with a heart of gold and having a drug abusing, prostitute mother doesn't exactly translate to feel good. The young girl decides to let her imagination take wind and shield her from the harsh realities of life. While this sounds like it should hit hard, it doesn't. Not even a little bit. The problem that Sean Baker has in all of his films is his characters. All of them are begging for sympathy when sympathy is the last thing they deserve. While I think the young girl, Moonee, deserves our sympathies, no one else does. Every one in this film has gotten themselves here by their own doing and Baker tries desperately to make us feel for them. It may work on some audiences but it was wasted on me.

Overall, this feels like a cheap grindhouse drama that really doesn't do any favors to the actors. The cinematography in the film is top notch and definitely shows that Baker has a visual eye but, as with his previous 2 films, the story is severely lacking. While I definitely think Baker has talent, it doesn't lie within his original stories. For those of you who enjoyed Baker's Tangerine or Starlet, give this a shot. Anyone else, you might want to skip it.

I really liked this film, as unorthodox as it was. The first hour was uproariously funny, before becoming a deep, and poignant study of the millions of lives of Americans who are living on the fringes of society, just barely surviving day to day. There is a shocking lack of cinema devoted to this underclass, and seeing this small film, was refreshing, enlightening, and surprising, and a refreshing contrast to the plutocracy we see all around us today.

The performances were outstanding. I am not sure where Bria Vinaite has been hiding, but she was astonishing as the mom, Hailey. Her daughter and all of the other kids were great, and their interactions, behavior, dialogue and play was hysterical. Then it kind of morphed into a more serious story, that was credible, and powerful. Willem Dafoe was his usual masterful self, and played a very real, very likable guy. A tough guy with a heart of gold.

I highly recommend this film. Not for everyone. Several people walked out during the film. My presumption was that they either thought the film focused too much time on the kids, or they were living in a state of denial, like so many Americans these days, pretending that this huge underclass does not exist. Regardless, it felt like a story that needed to be told. And it was told very well. Kudos to the filmmakers.

Beautifully humane film that at times recalls Italian Neo-Realism, at other times the child-based films that are so popular in Iran. That it was made in the USA, with a real if humble budget, seems surprising and is a testament to the commitment of the filmmakers.

Subtly going back and forth between the perspectives of the child and adult characters, the film has, at times, an almost magical realist vibe, though nothing remotely supernatural or surreal transpires. Indeed, this is a film steeped in harsh reality, but also one that captures the almost mystical sense of discovering life on the part of the children and sometimes, momentarily at least, even the adults.

On the other hand, the film also offers a very visceral sense of the stress of trying to survive amidst the scarcity of the margins of American capitalism.

The acting is incredible, all the more so given that, with the very notable exception of Willem Dafoe, the performers are all either non- actors or unknowns.