The Florida Project

DIRECTORS' NIGHT  The Magic Castle Motel is the tattered safety net for Orlando families verging on homelessness, a world away from Disneyworld’s glittering attractions just across town. But for precocious, six-year-old Moonee (Brooklynn Prince), the inn and its surrounding neighborhood hold their own enchantment as her gritty, personal amusement park. The little girl runs wild, sometimes dangerously so, and incites her playmates to follow her lead. While Bobby (a terrific, world-weary Willem Dafoe), the hotel’s sympathetic, often exasperated manager scolds her, her wild-child mother Halley (Bria Vinaite) indulges her. She is also about as emotionally mature as her daughter, and acts out without considering consequences. Like filmmaker Sean Baker and co-writer Chris Bergoch’s previous collaboration Tangerine, which focused on transgender women prostitutes in Los Angeles, The Florida Project observes its impoverished characters with understanding and compassion. Prince and Vinaite tug at the heart in a drama that evocatively depicts their lives and a hardscrabble corner of Florida with warmth, humor, and poignancy.