Explaining the end of Sean Baker movie ‘The Florida Project’
Helping to establish a new style in American cinema, heavily inspired by the authenticity of Italian neo-realism, Sean Baker’s impression of the USA is a complex and critical analysis. Though in the eyes of the mainstream, he has created three celebrated movies in Tangerine, The Florida Project and Red Rocket, his wider filmography, including such titles as Starlet, Prince of Broadway, and Take Out, creates a far more vibrant picture.
Focusing on downtrodden characters on the precipice of success, making frequent mentions of the mystical American Dream, Baker’s Oscar-nominated movie The Florida Project remains his most critically successful release. Demonstrating Florida’s economic disparity, where the towering sight of the million-dollar Disney castle looms over the impoverished housing of the surrounding areas, Baker’s film tells the story of a struggling single mother named Halley (Bria Vinaite) and her spirited toddler, Moonee (Brooklynn Prince).
The harrowing drama culminates in an emotional ending where Halley gets into a tangle with the Florida Department of Children and Families (DCF), who arrive at the mother’s temporary home at the Magic Castle motel to take Moonee into foster care. Scared, Moonee escapes the DCF workers at the door and goes to her friend Jancey’s motel in panic. Together, the two children escape from the deprivation of their reality and run to Disney World, Florida, weaving past ticket barriers and crowds to reach Cinderella’s iconic castle.
Filmed in a unique manner that differs from the style of the rest of the film whilst pairing the scene with a fantastical Disney soundtrack, the sad moment is a piece of magical realism told from Moonee’s perspective that takes her and the audience to a place of wonder, optimism and unabashed joy to escape the harsh realities of her custody situation.
Living at the Magic Castle Motel, Moonee sees no difference between her own pink paradise of strange wonder yet incomprehensible poverty, so she takes her mind to Disney World at the film’s climax to get somewhere else familiar yet more promising and more magical. For her, the theme park has always been heralded as a place of utter contentment by tourists and passer-Byers. As a young girl who knows no better, Disney world is the best possible place to go.
In a movie that explores motherhood, poverty and childhood innocence with a frank, realistic style, it would be bizarre for Sean Baker to end the film with such a sensational piece of fantasy. Moonee’s reality has only ever been based in the Magic Castle Motel, where her upbringing has been full of freedom and vibrancy, with a mother who may struggle but deeply cares for her. So, when the magic of her reality breaks in the final sequence, Baker prefers to treat the audience with the semblance of a happy ending rather than showing a tearful Moonee in the back of a police car.
Indeed, Baker isn’t all too keen to definitively explain the ending of his film. As he told The LA Times in 2018, “Now we’re telling the audience that this might not be real, but perhaps [it’s] the audience’s moment to use Moonee’s sense of imagination and wonderment to make the best of what might not be a happy ending”.
So, depending on your outlook on life, decide for yourself how Baker’s contemporary classic ends. We know which end we’re choosing.
