The Florida Project

## More information

**The Florida Project** is a 2017 American drama film directed by Sean Baker from a screenplay co-written with Chris Bergoch. It stars Willem Dafoe, Brooklynn Kimberly Prince, and Bria Vinaite.

## Synopsis

Set in the shadow of the most magical place on Earth, 6-year-old Moonee and her two best friends forge their own adventures, while Moonee's struggling mom and a kindhearted motel manager protect the kids from the harsh reality that surrounds them.

### Plot

Six-year-old Moonee lives with her young single mother Halley at Magic Castle Inn & Suites, a budget motel in Kissimmee, Florida, near Walt Disney World. She spends most of her summer days unsupervised and making mischief with her downstairs neighbor Scooty, who Halley is supposed to watch while his mother works at a diner, and Dicky, who lives at the nearby Futureland Inn. After Stacy, a new resident at Futureland, catches the trio spitting on her car, Dicky is grounded for a week, and Moonee and Scooty meet and befriend Stacy's granddaughter Jancey, who lives with Stacy, when Stacy makes them clean up their mess.

Halley recently lost her job as an “exotic dancer, which affects her eligibility for TANF benefits, and she relies on food that Scooty's mother, her friend Ashley, gets from work. Moonee and Scooty show Jancey around and teach her things like how to get free ice cream by begging and where to get the best view of a woman who sunbathes topless by Magic Castle's pool. The children regularly inconvenience Bobby, the manager of Magic Castle, such as when they shut off the motel's power, but he remains protective of them.

The similarity of Magic Castle's name to Disney World's Magic Kingdom occasionally causes wealthy people to accidentally book rooms, but most of the residents do not have much money, and a church regularly delivers donated food. Halley avoids becoming homeless by beginning to sell knockoff perfume to tourists in the parking lots of nice hotels. Bobby's duties at Magic Castle include preparing expense reports, ejecting drug dealers, and doing repairs, and he sometimes enlists the help of his son, with whom he has a tenuous relationship. One day, while painting, he notices a strange man hanging around a group of children and ejects him from the property.

Scooty finds a lighter in a box that Dicky's family left behind when they moved away, and he, Moonee, and Jancey accidentally start a fire at an abandoned condominium complex. Ashley gets the truth out of him, after which she forbids him from hanging out with Moonee or Jancey and stops talking to Halley. When Halley learns this, she goes to the diner where Ashley works and makes a scene. Moonee and Jancey continue to play together and become best friends.

Without the free food from Ashley, and with security guards beginning to bother her at the hotels, Halley's financial situation declines even further. When she and Moonee move out of Magic Castle for the mandated 24 hours that month, they discover new owners at the motel they usually go to have raised the rates, so they instead spend the night with Stacey. Aware of this, Bobby is suspicious when Halley finally pays for her room, and it turns out she has begun to solicit sex work online, keeping Moonee in the bathroom with loud music when she has a client. She steals a client's Disney World resort passes to scalp them, and the man returns to demand them back. Bobby scares him off, but says Halley's guests now have to check in at the front desk. Desperate, she apologizes to Ashley for whatever Moonee did and asks for help with rent, but Ashley says Halley should have plenty of money, since she is prostituting herself. In front of Scooty, Halley punches Ashley in the face repeatedly and storms off.

Investigators from the DCF show up and question Halley and Moonee separately about their lifestyle. Halley has Moonee help clean their room and gives away her weed in anticipation of another visit. They go to a fancy hotel and have an extravagant meal, which Halley charges to a guest's room, and when they return to Magic Castle, the investigators, having found evidence Halley is doing sex work, are waiting with two police officers to take Moonee into foster care while they finish their inquiry. Not really understanding what is happening, Moonee asks to say goodbye to Scooty, who lets slip that she is going to a new family. She becomes agitated and runs away to bid Jancey goodbye, and Jancey, seeing her friend's distress, grabs Moonee's hand and escapes with her to Magic Kingdom.

## Cast

* Willem Dafoe as Bobby Hicks
* Brooklynn Kimberly Prince as Moonee
* Bria Vinaite as Halley
* Valeria Cotto as Jancey
* Christopher Rivera as Scooty
* Caleb Landry Jones as Jack Hicks
* Aiden Malik as Dicky
* Josie Olivo as Grandma Stacey
* Edward "Punky Pagan as Ricky
* Patti Wiley as Amber
* Rosa Medina Perez as Bertha
* Mela Murder as Ashley Scooty's mother
* Sandy Kane as Gloria
* Jim R. Coleman as Cabbie
* Andrew Romano as Newlywed Groom
* Carolina Grabova as Newlywed Bride
* Terry Allen Jones as Patrice
* Karren Karagulian as Narek
* Carl Bradfield as Charlie Coachman
* Shail Kamini Ramcharan as Arabian Nights Owner
* Kit Sullivan as Jimmy
* Macon Blair as John
* Lauren O'Quinn as Investigator
* Cecilia Quinan as DCF Supervisor

## Videos & Photos

The Florida Project - Official Trailer HD - A24