The Florida Project (2017)

Sean Baker’s The Florida Project (2017) does not blatantly criticize wealth; he tells a nuanced story about the complex relationship between wealth and satisfaction. Moonee and her mother, Halley, are homeless. While they are not sleeping on a sidewalk each night, Halley is unable to afford housing, hence why she pays weekly to live at the Magic Castle Inn. Since they are poor, the film demonstrates the benefits of wealth. Many of Halley’s problems would be solved with money. However, the means by which Halley obtains an income determines her long-term satisfaction. While there is an undercurrent of tension throughout the film, it is hidden behind the saturated colors of the world, and the excitement of Moonee and her friends wandering Orlando with a sense of complete freedom. I will be exploring the wealth disparity in Florida through Baker’s film by analyzing how systems failed Halley and Moonee, Moonee’s innocence, and the results of generating wealth.

She still needs to find the leprechaun with the pot of gold. While the examination of who gets to enjoy Disney World is not a main theme of the film, it raises the question: if Halley and Moonee live a couple of minutes away from the most magical place on earth, where dreams come true, why can't they partake in the magic? While other genres, such as slasher films, could explain Halley’s living situation as the consequence of having a daughter at a young age and being a single mom, Baker shows that a system is failing Halley and Moonee.

While one would assume Halley’s unwillingness to partake in prostitution would be honorable in American society, Halley is instead pushed aside as she is already considered undesirable. She does not fit the mold of Florida on film, where middle-class and upper-class families spend time in resorts to escape their struggles. The book Sunshine in the Dark writes, “the state has been perceived as a fantasy land, where natural and embellished habitats and construction sites draw vacationers seeking respite from work, commuting, and gray skies, or snow (Fernández 6). Despite living in paradise, Halley is living in hell. Rather than the welfare employee creating a solution for Halley’s unemployment, she is told to censor herself, as it is disruptive to Moonee and the others in the office. Halley and Moonee become trapped in their poverty. Despite the entrapment of poverty, Halley and Moonee’s lives are contrasted by the sights and sounds of tourism, which deceptively give the film a more joyful feel.

Two-thirds into the film, from Moonee’s perspective, Halley randomly obtains four Disney World magic bands and sells them for four hundred dollars, leading Moonee and her to have a shopping spree filled with happiness and freedom from monetary stress. It is only when a man interrupts the joyful movement by accusing Halley of stealing his magic bands, ruining his family vacation, as they are no longer able to go to Disney World, that the film confirms to the audience Halley has turned to sex work (1:18:00-1:22:35).

The new wave of films set in Florida represents women with autonomy and directness as they were on a hunt to marry men with money. While these films portrayed gold diggers, they would leave audiences with the message that love wins in the end by having the women marry someone they love rather than the man who appeared to have exuberant amounts of wealth. From the start of the film, Halley is trying to make money. It is only when push comes to shove that she turns to sex work, which entangles her with a married man on his family vacation. Unlike the films from the 1920s and 1930s, Baker does give Halley the fairytale ending. Love does not win in the end. Although Halley deeply loves Moonee, the film ends with Child Services taking Moonee away. The audience comes full circle as we see at the start of the film, as we see another system, like the welfare employee, fail Halley and Moonee, rather than creating a solution to keep them together in their own little kingdom.

Florida is often portrayed as a place where middle-class and upper-class families can get a taste of paradise and leave the gloominess of their everyday life for a couple of weeks. Sean Beaker critiques the fantasyland image of Orlando by putting Halley and Moonee front and center of his film. The Florida Project is heavily connected to Disney through the title and the proximity of the Magic Castle Inn to Disney World, but the film makes it clear that dreams do not come true for everyone. Despite the film putting a filter over the lens to make it seem like a feel-good movie, beneath it all, Halley and Moonee are stuck in poverty with no clear answers about how to get the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. The film critiques Disney’s welcoming nature by putting money at the center. For many, the opportunity to be in Magic Kingdom and to experience the magic Walt Disney spoke so highly of is expensive, and with that money, many gratifying experiences are made. Halley and Moonee cannot afford to experience the wonder. They are not wealthy enough to have a fairy godmother wave her wand and make all their troubles disappear. In fact, it is the lack of money that pushes Halley into prostituting herself to have a roof over their heads and to provide basic needs for Moonee and herself. It ultimately leads to their separation.