REVIEW: The Florida Project is the last great movie of 2017, a portrait of childhood prevailing over all

REVIEW: The Florida Project is a beautiful, heartbreaking and modestly masterful portrait of how to grow up when the only way is down. Might just win Willem Dafoe an Oscar, too!

THE FLORIDA PROJECT (MA15+)

Rating: four and a half stars (4.5 out of 5)

Director: Sean Baker (Tangerine)

Starring: Brooklynn Prince, Willem Dafoe, Valeria Cotto, Bria Vinalte, Chirstopher Rivera, Caleb Landry Jones.

When growing up is all about never letting it get you down

So beautiful, heartbreaking and unassumingly masterful from beginning to end, The Florida Project is undoubtedly one of the best movies of 2017.

Unfortunately, my look at this remarkable snapshot of a wonderful childhood transpiring in difficult circumstances missed the deadline for the Top 10 list of the year published last week.

This would have cruised into the #5 slot. The Florida Project is that good. No, make it that great.

Halley (Bria Vinalte) and Moonee (Brooklynn Prince) in The Florida Project.

The movie’s rarefied quality is all the more unique because a majority of its cast - with the obvious exception of Willem Dafoe in a crucial role - have never acted before.

The story unfolds over the first weeks of summer in Orlando, Florida, amidst a ragged collection of rundown budget motels that flank the famous Walt Disney World theme park.

At the ironically named Magic Castle Motel, precocious 6-year-old Moonee (Brooklynn Prince, a truly astonishing performance from one so young) is being raised to fend for herself by her struggling single mother, Halley (Bria Vinalte).

Moonee’s best bud Jancey (Valeria Cotto) lives the same kind of hardscrabble existence at the nearby Futureland Inn.

Jancey (Valeria Cotto) and Moonee (Brooklynn Prince) take a break from their non-stop mischief-making in The Florida Project.

Together, this mischievous pair while away the days playing pranks, improvising adventures, and charming traders and tourists for anything they can take them for.

Keeping what passes for a watchful eye in this everyone-for-themselves part of the world is the Magic Castle manager Bobby (Dafoe, who will probably score a Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his finely finessed work here).

Willem Dafoe looks Oscars-bound for his work in The Florida Project.

Though Bobby isn’t the friendliest dude in Orlando, the genuine shine he takes to Moonee becomes an important factor when dark clouds begin to gather around Halley and the risks she is taking to make ends meet.

Roughly filmed with an emphasis on raw heart over manufactured art, The Florida Project is a singular movie experience that may take aback some viewers to the point of sorrow in certain scenes.

However, all will be taken to a better place by the time the final credits roll.

The abiding memory will be that of little Moonee, still finding a way to happily float through her childhood, even if the river ahead through life looks like running dry.

Originally published as REVIEW: The Florida Project is the last great movie of 2017, a portrait of childhood prevailing over all