The Florida Project. Netflix. 9/10

As you can tell from the title posted, this entry is (to date) the highest-ranked picture on this blog. The Florida Project is the follow-up film from director Sean Baker, who is more critically recognized for his outstanding work of the 2015 indie flick Tangerine. As I write this review, I cannot with ease describe the almost impossible task of putting this film into words. I fell in love with it. This film at its core is raw, authentic, and heartbreaking. It is the story of innocence in one of the most sinful environments that no child should ever have to witness. This film was able to portray through stunning and eye-catching cinematography the story of a world many of us might not have experienced firsthand, a world which through its naked landscape, shows us the beauty and raw nature of what it is to be living borderline homeless. This film leads us with what we imagine is a story of a young girl, but quickly turns into a complex social structure of an impoverished community of people living in a motel for low rent, all of this community held together by the glue that is the manager Bobby (William Dafoe). We are then shown the girl's mother, Halley (Bria Vinaite), and truth be told one could spell out a hundred different things wrong with her, but where she captures our hearts is with her pure love and care for her child, Moonee. The child's mom could be labeled as the definition of a bad mother, but when presented by her own mother, we as the audience sympathize and understand that this is all she's ever known, she cannot be better because she is the best she knows about. It shows that the world is a cycle, that whatever we learned from our parents will most likely be taught onto our kids and so forth. This film also takes on the burdensome task of presenting a social commentary on class struggles, social identity, family, love, and happiness. The acting in this film was almost godlike, with a low budget of two million dollars, one can see how passionate the cast was in presenting the characters and the environment they are in. Most notably, there is that of a young Brooklyn Prince who played Moonee in the film. The young star's ability to portray emotion and life into her small bits of dialogue is one in a million and is deserving of at least some recognition which to my knowledge she has been misprized of. I have absolutely nothing bad to say about this film, which is why I am left speechless and scrambling to find words for it. This film's director and everyone who had an ounce of collaboration showed what can be achieved from a group of passionate artists with pure love for the art of storytelling and for shining a light on these real-life scenarios which are often ostracized. I would recommend anybody to watch this movie, and really try to pay attention to the silver underlining hidden underneath the frame. The heart of this film is not it's dialogue, nor its eccentric sets or design. The heart of this film is exposed with a genuine story that encapsulates us in a bubble of grief. Watch this movie, you will NOT regret it.