Reviews

The Floria Project presents life in Florida's lower economic rungs through the eyes of a child living in a motel on the outskirts of Disney World. She sees rainbows, fireworks and purple-tinted fun while the rest of us see crushing poverty. Moonee, the lead is played brilliantly by Brooklyn Prince as an uninhibited wild child. The film sets up Moonee as intensely self aware, driven by instinct. But when she confronts the impossible, her mom being discovered for prostitution, police and social workers showing up at her "home" motel room 323 to put her in foster care, she breaks down as any child would. This movie is like Iggy Azalea, the realist. When Hailey, for example, throws up in response to being found out for prostitution, it's totally grounded in the narrative. When many other films have a character barf on screen it often reads as a cheap and stupid narrative trick.

Visually this film creates a parallel hyper reality that the kids inhabit. The vibrant colors, the seeming never-ending adventures, this is not the real world, but is an example of magical realism or expressionism, where character's minds cover over harsh truths and present the world to the viewer through their perspective. In the climax (spoiler) it's only another child who knows what to do to stop Moonee's panicked tears. Together they break into Disney World. A place that is as unreal as the children's magical realism. They run to the center of the park in the hope that the outside world will fall away. We know and the filmmaker Sean Baker knows that's impossible. When I see Moonee crying at the end, with her hands in her mouth I think of a frightened baby. That's where I've seen that gesture before. It's a deeply moving moment. Willem Defoe is particularly strong as Bobby in the scenes where he does every job necessary with deep humanity, including spotting a predator pedofile while painting the motel in the Orlando palate.

Many viewers will recognize Orlando, Disney, and the poverty depicted, and yet still be shocked by the harsh juxtaposition. If anyone is wondering about the look, the film was mostly shot analog Kodak film with Panavision cameras, I believe. It just looks like film to me. But then there are also scenes shot on an IPhone 6. The production details show a range of digital and film cameras. Finally, there is a thematic tie between this film and Truffaut's The 400 Blows, another great film about A parallel world of childhood, petty crimes.

Jackie Robinson plays himself, giving this film a documentary component that is slightly more than docudrama. His acting is pretty good, he plays himself in the same way he presented his true self to the baseball world, kind and competent, determined to win. The racism presented in this film is real, as is the baseball.

The film was released in 1950 while Robinson was still a young man, just 3 years into his Brooklyn career, at the peak of his skills and before the Dodgers won the World Series. He had just won the MVP award when the film was made, and he hadn't yet gone grey. This is a movie about his life story while it's still being written, that makes it fascinating. Ruby Dee plays Mrs. Rachel Robinson, a civil rights pioneer in her own right and a beloved member of the Dodger family during his lifetime and for decades after Jackie died in 1972.

It's a stinging critique of American racism even where it may not intend to be, Minor Watson playing Branch Rickey, one of the real heroes of this real-life story refers to Jackie as boy in their first meeting. As a lifelong Dodger fan I want to think that is a disservice to the real Branch Rickey. Though in later scenes Rickey defends Robinson eloquently, "If anybody has got any rocks to throw, they can throw them at me." in other scenes racist fans yell from the stands with profanity, and throw a black cat at Jackie, these scenes feel as if they were plucked from real life.

As for it's b-movie status, the film suffers in the same way that some B-Film Noir does, more from a lack of budget than inspiration. The director Allred E Green had earlier directed Betty Davis in her Oscar-winning performance in Dangerous (1935).

If you believe in quantum physics, string theory and the notion of infinite universes, then somewhere there is a universe where Quentin Tarantino gets to write our collective history. That's the universe where I want to live.

This film is the work of a master filmmaker, the Sharon Tate scenes that set up the plot are gut wrenching and perfectly realized by Margot Robbie, she's beautiful yet human, perfect. The lead actors are exact in their choices, the script is surprisingly excellent, bridging space between documentary truth and narrative brilliance.

A love letter to old LA, as observed by a native. And finally, not a single use of the N word, the biggest flaw in some of his recent work IMHO.

His best film, maybe ever.