Sean Baker’s 2017 drama, now streaming on Netflix, ends with a dramatic gut punch to the heart like no other. “The Florida Project” With readers turning to their home viewing options more than ever, this daily feature provides one new movie each day worth checking out on a major streaming platform. Few movie endings over the last several years have proven to be as divisive as “ The Florida Project ,” Sean Baker’s 2017 drama about a single mother and her young daughter living in a Florida budget motel on the outskirts of Walt Disney World. The film, now streaming on Netflix , world-premiered to universal acclaim at Directors’ Fortnight in Cannes, but even admirers of Baker’s slice-of-life vision have found the film’s last one minute sequence to be tough to swallow. Baker makes such a jarring filmmaking shift that it’s hard to enjoy “The Florida Project” finale, and yet it’s without a doubt one of the most perfect and most fitting movie endings in recent memory. “The Florida Project” stars Brooklynn Prince as Moonee, a six-year-old whose big imagination shields her from the grim realities of her poverty-stricken life. The key to what makes the film’s ending so brilliant is the perspective from which Baker not only tells his story, but visualizes it as well. To watch “The Florida Project” is to view the world through a child’s eyes in all its big, beautiful glory. Working with cinematographer Alexis Zabe, Baker turns Moonee’s desolate Florida surroundings into a candy-colored playground. Her budget motel is a neon pink kingdom, made all the more humungous as the camera is often at Moonee’s height. The vibrant blue sky looms large, the clouds as white and robust as the opening of a “Toy Story” movie. The grass is a florescent green. The […]
