The Florida Project gets better as it moves along and builds to a powerful conclusion

Sean Baker's The Florida Project has at first a documentary feel - a study of three children and living in what appears to be a welfare hotel on the distant outskirts of Disney World. It takes a while for a narrative to develop, but it's well worth giving the film your full attention as it's one of those rare movies that gets better as it moves along and builds to an incredibly powerful and emotional dramatic climax. The center of the film is a young (about 6 years old?) girl, Moonee, and her mom, a single mother with extremely bad judgment about raising her daughter. Among other things, this film is a social commentary on the welfare system as well as an unflinching look at neglected children who have just enough care, resources, and attention to be above the line for state intervention but who seem destined to get into serious trouble once they're older and less cute and carefree. The movie is continuously fascinating visually, w/ bright, high-contrast photography capturing the harsh Florida sunlight, the bizarre commercial structures along a Florida strip, and the weird tropical colors of the vast hotels where single mothers and child live week to week at cheap daily rates. Brooklyn Prince deserves special note for her portrayal of Moonee; she has a good shot I think at best actress nomination, which might make her the youngest since Shirley Temple? It's not clear whether the film was completely scripted or of the children were encouraged to ad lib in some of the playing and their games; either way, the movie feels entirely real and credible, and though we have only limited sympathy for Moonee's troubled mother, Halley, she is by no means a monster - the adults in the movie are flawed but credible, trying to get by and do their best by their kids, in their own fashion. William Defoe as the manager of the hotel (the Magic Castle) is fine as well, a nuanced, humane character who looks after the kids from a distance, like a "catcher in the rye."