The Florida Project (Sean Baker, 2017)
Imdb
Date Watched: 2/15/19
Cinema or Home: Home
Reason For Watching: 18th MoFo Hall of Fame, nominated by rauldc14
Rewatch: No.
I went into this movie having no idea what to expect. I'd read the name and seen images of the film's poster around MoFo but nothing about those things piqued my interest. Things weren't looking too promising either in the first few minutes of the film as Moonee and the other children basically made nuisances of themselves.
As the film progressed though, I slowly began to feel something for the situation these characters were in. I wouldn't say that I liked Halley, and certainly she made a lot of poor choices, but I found it easy to see how much of a struggle her life was. I felt for the kids, too, as they faced hardships they could neither control nor truly understand. The one character that really stood out to me though, was Bobby the manager. I really loved the way he tried to help and how he never turned a judgmental eye on the others, even as they laid blame on him for things that went wrong.
I also really loved how real the characters felt - not in spite of their petty, trashy ways but because of it. I appreciated that nobody was painted as a hero or as a villain. They were just a bunch of people in a situation without much hope, struggling through their day to day existences all within sight of that "Magic Kingdom."
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