‘Florida Project’ finds exquisite, colorful region
Central Florida is ready for its close-ups and its long shots in “The Florida Project,” a film of breathtaking images and tones.
“There are characteristics of Central Florida you don’t see anywhere else. It’s quite beautiful,” director Sean Baker told me last week. “I found the location to be just exquisite, giving us so much eye candy, the colors that you get.”
He called the state’s palette “incredible, a gift to a filmmaker.”
The movie, now showing at the Enzian theater in Maitland, may be the year’s best gift to filmgoers.
“‘The Florida Project’ is (probably) the best movie you’ll see this year,” Glenn Whipp predicted last week in the Los Angeles Times.
The movie focuses on precocious children living in cheap motels near Walt Disney World and leading boisterous adventures that, by design, echo the “Little Rascals” movies of the 1930s. The movie works on levels that would seem contradictory: a travelogue that’s a cautionary tale, a child’s adventure that’s R-rated, a comedy that’s also a social drama about homelessness.
The focus is 6-year-old Moonee (Brooklynn Prince of Winter Springs), the children’s ringleader.
“I want to at least say to audiences, ‘Look you’re going to laugh, you’re going to have fun with these kids,’” Baker said. “But at the same time, there is a message here. At the end of the day, I want audiences to go home and be thinking about the real little Moonees and the circumstances they’re in, and say, ‘Hey, perhaps I can bring some change here.’ Awareness is the first step. I wanted to do it through capturing an audience’s heart and mind with humor and entertainment.”
Baker co-wrote the movie with Chris Bergoch, who credits his mother with starting the filmmakers on the project. She had moved to Central Florida from New Jersey, and when he came to visit, he noticed children playing along U.S. Highway 192. His mother explained the situation, and he started Googling.
“It’s been happening everywhere, but here it’s happening in the shadow of Cinderella Castle and the most magical place on Earth,” Bergoch said. “There was such an irony to it.”
Their digging brought them across a tree that inspires one of the movie’s most memorable lines. “If we didn’t do all that research and just explore, we wouldn’t have found that tree and that line,” Bergoch said.
The Los Angeles filmmakers researched homelessness by turning to national and local reports on the topic. It’s a familiar process for them as they conducted extensive research on Baker’s “Tangerine” (2015) and “Starlet” (2012).
“I’m not from Florida, but representation is extremely important to me,” Baker said. “I want Floridians to embrace this movie and say we captured it right. This feels like a Florida film, and we’re not making fun of Florida. We’re not poking Florida. Actually I find Florida to be quite beautiful, and Floridians to be beautiful people, and I want that to come across in the film. The laughter in the film, we’re always laughing with the characters, not at them.”
Ultimately, it may be one of the greatest works of art to come out of Central Florida. It’s a story of resiliency and inspiration, and locals can watch locals succeed. During filming last year, Brooklynn was just 6, and Valeria Cotto, who plays pal Jancey, was only 5. Valeria, who is originally from Kissimmee, lives in Davenport. Both girls are now 7 and became best friends during filming.
Brooklynn inspired the filmmakers by pulling off her most difficult scene a week and a half into the 35-day shoot. “It was a big weight off our shoulders,” Baker said. “It was a rocky production, but it was also something in which we’re working with somebody really special.”
Baker attributes the rockiness to himself. “My way of directing is definitely unorthodox, definitely unconventional,” he said. “I was working with a union crew, a local crew and a crew coming up from Miami. They weren’t used to my directing style, and I wasn’t always sticking to schedule.”
One example: Baker saw cranes and asked Willem Dafoe, who plays hotel manager Bobby, to interact with them.
“It was fear on the set we wouldn’t complete it, especially dealing with little kids and limited hours,” Baker said. “Suddenly I’m improvising behind the camera as well. But everyone eventually got on the same page. I started to be more communicative.”
The filmmakers say they are lucky. Bergoch marvels that the movie might not exist if his mother hadn’t moved to Central Florida. If the film had been made sooner, they would have missed out on Brooklynn and her young co-stars.
“It’s so great when something that is in your head for five years actually kind of works on some level,” Bergoch said.
According to most critics, “The Florida Project” works very well on many levels. So far, Baker said he has not heard from the Walt Disney Co. He would seem the perfect Disney director after his stellar work with children, and he would bring edge to fantasies.
“I know it would be my co-screenwriter’s dream come true,” Baker said. “He loves Disney with a passion.”