By Lindsey Bahr, AP Film Writer
Not too far from the gates of the Walt Disney World Resort, where families are promised "enchanted escapes" and "fun" and "magic" and where day tickets start at a cool $99 a person, is a discount motel off a busy street called The Magic Castle.
It's painted in garish shades of lavender and amethyst right down to the street curbs. The ice machine is broken. The washer and dryer often are too. It costs $38 a night. And it is home for a young mother, Halley, and her 6-year-old daughter, Moonee, in director Sean Baker's "The Florida Project ," a transcendently beautiful, funny, heartwarming (and heart wrenching) tale of childhood, poverty and the broken American dream.
This is Kissimmee, Florida, and it is less than 10 miles away from that fairy tale promise of Disney. It might as well be on another planet.
Not that Moonee notices. Played by the wonderfully great newcomer Brooklynn Prince, Moonee exists is in a world of her own: A charmed childhood dreamscape of freedom and friends and devilish fun and colorful buildings shaped like oranges and soft serve cones.
Moonee is not an angel — quite the opposite. She's kind of a terror. She is not well-behaved or polite or deferential to adults. And she does some truly bad things, but you can't help but fall in love with her. She is unmistakably her age, which Baker never conceals or glosses over or exploits for mawkish story tricks.
Young childhood is so hard to get right in the movies. Children in films are pawns that never feel true — either too poetic or perceptive or cute to be believed. But Baker and his co-writer Chris Bergoch get it so very right with Moonee and her friends. It feels like you're watching a documentary at times.
As far as Moonee is concerned, things are good at The Magic Castle. She doesn't know that she lives on the brink of poverty, or that her mother, played by another terrific newcomer in Bria Vinaite, might not be looking out for her best interests all the time. All she knows is she can run to the back alley of a diner to get free pancakes from her friend's mom and talk strangers into giving her money for free ice cream whenever. She knows that her mom is fun and loves her and that she is safe enough to not question her own safety.
It helps that the kind and empathetic motel manager Bobby (Willem Dafoe) picks up the supervision slack and keeps an eye on Moonee and her friends. He is a thankless father figure to all the borderline homeless tenants of the motel.
And Dafoe's warm and generous performance is simply astonishing. It's not one you'll soon forget (although it might make you forget some of the creeps he's played over the years).
Coming off of the vibrant "Tangerine," Baker has outdone himself with the all-out triumph that is "The Florida Project" which will have your emotions running the gamut and you running back to the ticket counter for one more viewing. It's that good.
That it also might make you think about those who live near the poverty line, the children they have and the lives they lead and the consequences and ever present fear of one missed payment. Being poor is neither as dour or romantic as the movies generally might have you believe.
Thank goodness, then, for "The Florida Project," a candy-colored fairy tale on the wrong side of the tracks that knows that even though the Disney fences are high and the prices steep, the end of night firework show is for anyone who takes a moment to look up at the sky.
"The Florida Project," an A24 release, is rated R by the Motion Picture Association of America for "for language throughout, disturbing behavior, sexual references and some drug material." Running time: 115 minutes. Four stars out of four.
SCHROM x Yacht Club and Be Electric Studios Launch Electric XR for Virtual Production
SCHROM x Yacht Club, a full-service live-action, tabletop, and postproduction company, has teamed with Be Electric Studios, a soundstage, equipment rental, and virtual production company, to launch Electric XR, a virtual production collective.
Industry veteran Thomas Rossano will lead the new venture, which provides advanced virtual production solutions across multiple facilities. He brings over 25 years of experience in live-action, tabletop, postproduction and talent curation to enhance Electric XR’s offerings as a resource for brands and agencies, as well as other production companies in need of virtual production solutions. Additionally Rossano continues to serve as EP at XR New York (XR-NY), a role he’s held since December 2022. SCHROM x Yacht Club originally established XR-NY to help provide XR services for third-party rentals. While XR-NY will continue to function independently for SCHROM X Yacht Club, it now operates under the Electric XR umbrella.
Rossano’s expertise spans producing live-action commercials, branded content, interactive and experiential content. In addition to leading Electric XR, he holds responsibilities at SCHROM x Yacht Club which include driving business development, collaborating with sales reps and expanding the company’s creative talent network. Rossano’s career includes serving as an exec producer at Hungry Man for about 11 years, right from that company’s inception. He then went on to become a partner at Station Film where he also had a lengthy tenure. Later he was a partner at PRISM. Then after the pandemic hit, he became a freelance EP for nearly two years, looking into opportunities in virtual production, which led him to XR NY and now Electric XR. Over the years, he has produced high-profile... Read More