The Florida Project

The Florida Project
Poverty and despair are things I have not observed in America and especially not in Florida where, back then and as tourists, we never ventured far from the attractions, the malls and scenic roads. This movie was thus a bit of a surprise for me since we stayed in many such motels and that led me to seek how much of it was fiction.

Fortunately nowadays the internet can quickly bring us poignant and selfless testimonies such as the ones I placed below from N.Y.T. readers. So I got my answer, this movie is as close to reality as it could get; welcome in the Florida of 2018.

As a side note; I would have watched it without Willem Dafoe's participation but I am glad he did come because his acting is top notch as usual and his celebrity is likely to allow the producer to at least breakeven with their risky investment in such a gloomy scenario.

SurfRat Melbourne, FL December 31, 2017
❝The glib, arrogant, dismissal of this masterpiece as "vulgar" is exactly the chord one expects from those confronted with a work of social realism: real, in the sense of a 110% accurate portrayal of life at the margins; social in its portrayal of the USA as light years away from the exceptionally superior nation the Trump-squad believe they live in.

I live about 50 miles away from this strip of irony, my wife grew up only a few dollars away from this milieu. The verisimilitude achieved is exceptional. The script, cinematography, exceptional casting, locations, wardrobe, editing, direction: everything is at the pinnacle of craftsmanship. I was left spent, emotionally drained and saddened. If you believe in art as transformative, this is an exemplar.❞

Concerned Citizen Anywheresville October 11, 2017
❝I lived in Orlando for several years (and have visited the area since my teens), and I was well aware of this. It's not just this area near the theme parks -- this is typical of Florida overall. Most northerners who only come on vacations, think the entire state is made up of amusement parks, wealthy enclaves on the ocean, beaches and tourist industries. That is not the real, everyday Florida for most of its residents -- for every affluent retiree from up north in their gated communities, there are 1-2 poor local residents who struggle in a very flaccid economy that does not offer good paying jobs and where the welfare benefits are very stingy.

When my husband first moved down to Orlando, to take a job -- we couldn't move directly into a house (we didn't know the city at all, for one thing -- had no idea where we even wanted to buy) and so lived in a residential motel. I could tell a bunch of stories similar to "The Florida Project". This was well BEFORE the 2008 recession, and yet I saw families who were LIVING in motels, crammed into a single room -- because rents and home prices were so unaffordable. I saw all kinds of dysfunction, drugs & prostitution. (We couldn't get out of the motel area fast enough, but we were very lucky to be ABLE to do so!)

As you say, these sad places are filled with drug users, dealers, highly dysfunctional adults and the near-homeless. It is a perfectly awful place to bring kids, yet there they are.❞

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Florida_Project,
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/05/movies/the-florida-project-review-sean-baker-willem-dafoe.html