Film: Two slice-of-life explorations of youth

The Florida Project

Directed by Sean Baker

Starring Brooklyn Prince, Brina Vinaite, William Defoe,

Lady Bird

Directed by Greta Gerwig

Starring Saoirse Ronan, Laurie Metcalf, Tracy Letts

These two films by young directors both have a realistic, slice-of-life approach to exploring childhood (The Florida Project) and adolescence (Lady Bird). Neither has an important life/societal event to set things moving—we just drop in on lives already established. While each has an ending of sorts, we are left unresolved, much as life is. Each relies on an unpromising setting (the tacky hotels and strip malls of Florida, the humdrum world of Sacramento CA) as a main “character” that drives the plot forward. Finally, each depicts much-discussed working class families trying to get by while creating a future for their children. On a personal level, it was fascinating and nostalgic to see two areas I resided in (and was generally unimpressed by) serve as such key elements in these films.

Of the two films, The Florida Project is the more risky, unconventional and edgy. The film follows the summer of first grader Moonee (the wonderfully spontaneous six year-old newcomer Brooklyn Prince) as she pursues childhood diversions while her down-and-out mother scrapes together a living in the dreary strip malls of suburban Orlando. This tacky environment is proximate to but economically and emotionally far away from the Disney Magic Kingdom. The film was prompted by the director’s reading about homeless people living week to week in tacky Orlando tourist hotels (shaped like spaceports, oranges, etc.), apparently responsible for local epidemics of drug dealing and prostitution. As in Barry Jenkins’ Moonstruck, director Sean Baker uses the intense pastel colors, daunting multi-lane boulevards, and surreal tourist haunts that characterize much of Florida as protagonists in themselves, providing a hallucinogenic colorful beauty as a backdrop to crime and misfortune (e.g. one shot occurs on Seven Dwarfs Drive, and the opening credits are shown over a purple stucco backdrop). Baker films the endless orange-shaped and rocket-shaped buildings with vivid color bursts and long tracking shots to emphasize how the spread out-ness of Florida might be daunting to a small child, while still providing them with a fascinating, colorful place to explore. 

While Moonee’s life seems tragically limited by her immature, reckless mother, her friends entering and exiting as parents depart the hotels, and her own tendency towards sociopathy, director Baker makes this seem cheerful and normal by approaching sad grown-up events from a child’s naïve eyes. In presenting this dichotomy the film reminded me of Patrick McCabe’s wonderful novel The Butcher Boy (also an excellent Neil Jordan 1997 film) in which the happy child first-person narrator tells us of the wonders of his happy childhood, all the while murdering and psychopathically destroying his environment. While Moonee is not this destructive, she is a handful for adults, and some of the warmest and most disturbing moments in the film come when we see her immature mother’s inability to provide parenting. Director Baker dispenses with the usual dramatic devices used to build tension, opting for an almost-hidden camera approach to observe their lives. We see a world in which only the wild seven year-olds can interact with true collegiality, without the manipulation, prejudice, and depression their parents exhibit. Yet Moonee is aware of her mother’s limitations; Moonee’s escapades into the swamps and parking lots are her relief from an intolerable “home” in a purple stucco hotel. Only the very ending allows Moonee to escape this environment, yet provides no real solace or closure; and her “escape” may or may not be real. Do not see The Florida Project to get caught up in riveting character drama or plot development. The feel is more of one of those TV crime documentaries showing unpleasantly real people in unfiltered exposition of themselves to a hidden camera. This is enhanced by the director recruiting amateurs in the main roles of Moonee and her mother, along with many of the subsidiary parts. The only “star” is William Defoe, playing a sympathetic-yet-frustrated hotel manager; he admirably plays the role in such a restrained manner that he blends into the amateurs, yet provides a needed moral focus to the film. This strangely neutrally-named film is not easy to watch, and not all will care for its darkness masked in childhood innocence, but The Florida Project is creative, visually stunning (purple, orange!) and worth your patience.

Lady Bird is not as risky or edgy, but is filled with excellent, natural performances. This is another slice-of-life film, showing seventeen year-old Lady Bird (the wonderful, subtle Saoirse Ronan) in the final months of her Catholic high school career in Sacramento, then her transition to the first days of college. She is bored by her Catholic school, her humdrum parents, and by the stultifying environment of Sacramento, and yearns for the big city. Once again, there are no huge traumas, plot-generating cataclysms (other than normal high school dating, prom, theater, and friend dramas), so we must rely on the actors’ portrayal of normality to drive the film. This they do, under expert direction from debut director Greta Gerwig, previously known for acting in TV (The Mindy Project) and film (Todd Brumbach’s Frances Ha, Todd Solondz’ weird 2016 Wiener-Dog). She has an extraordinary talent for summoning unforced, natural acting from her cast. Unlike The Florida Project, this movie uses professional actors including Tracy Letts as her father and a big comeback from Laurie Metcalf (Jackie on 1980’s TV Roseann!), who plays Lady Bird’s mother with marvelous, teen-frustrated maternal intensity. 

There is also some luxury casting of smaller roles, including Lucas Hedges (Oscar-nominated for Manchester by the Sea (2016) as a sexually confused erstwhile boyfriend. Time and again, Gerwig shows us common high school scenes that look real, including snippets from the school musical (Sondheim’s Merrily We Roll Along, a favorite of frustrated big-time directors condemned to high school theater teaching) that honestly capture the scene of talented, but too-young actors earnestly playing grownup roles. While some of the wonderful naturalness of the film stems from director Gerwig’s own roots as a Catholic schoolgirl in Sacramento, her real achievement is in getting a group of well-known actors to form an ensemble that creates such a realistic, non-melodramatic yet nostalgic environment. I think most people will have resonant memories evoked during this film. A little like Boyhood, it feels like the film starts and ends at some random place in the life of a not-very-remarkable child. Unlike Boyhood, which relied on a unique timelapse device following real actors as they mature over years, Lady Bird avoids dialing in any such special effects, or devices often used in teen coming-of-age movies, such as imposed quirkiness (Juno) or pop psychoanalysis (The Breakfast Club). Here, a talented director just guides her talented actors in creating an understated, nostalgic world for us. If you do not need conventional Hollywood plotting, you will enjoy this movie for its ability to return you to your youth.