A lazy, disgusting, disrespectful, foul mouthed, violent young woman has kids and then ignores them. Then when she needs more money she becomes a prostitute because she's too lazy to get a real job like her friend. And nothing really happens.
WTF is the point? This is a terrible movie.
π
It is a very depressing movie despite how the directer tries to tell the story from the mind of a child blah blah. There are direly poor children like this all over the place and once they reach the age of about 12, the full comprehension of their poverty hits them like a ton of bricks. The misery only grows into the teen years as they realize that poverty is not easy to transition out of. The movie is extremely depressing because the real life version of this little girl will only have her brief ignorant bliss for so long. Then comprehension, reality and suffering hits.
share
And at that point she needs to pull herself up by her bootstraps, and get an education and/or a job, and make something of her life. You're only a victim if you allow yourself to be one.
π
Some of these kids (not just in the movie) don't get a consistent education because they're moved around constantly. Many lose interest in school all together. Bad combination.
share
Then they need to get their fecal matter aggregated and get an education. You're only a victim if you choose to be, or
you are too lazy to not be. Many rich and famous people started the same way, but they got off their asses and made something of themselves. And EVERYBODY can do the same thing.
π
Do Americans really believe this? That all poor people is poor because they are lazy and not do anything? That it's your fault? What a lack of empathy
shareBecause it's just that simple, right?
share
Yes it is simple actually. But not easy. But nothing worthwhile ever is.
π
It's simple but not easy? What does that even mean?
shareYou don't know what that means? Seriously?
It's simple, as in get an education, get a job, and work very hard. Try to advance in your job, or get a better one. Don't spend more than you make. Save and invest. Simple.
But it's not easy. You have to work hard. Working hard is not easy, but you have to work hard to obtain anything of value in this life.
Do you understand now?
π
Let me guess, you're a white republican male.
share
Let me guess. You're a Socialist/Democrat, who like all S/Ds, brings identity politics into everything, and plays the race card at every opportunity. Like you're doing right now.
And BTW, I don't care about the color of your skin. That is unimportant.
π
Do you care about my vagina?
share
I also don't care if you're a man or a woman.
π
Lol....neither do I. I guess I get what you're saying, I just don't agree. Some people just aren't psychologically aware enough to know they could do better. These people are very damaged--they're not your average lazy ass who doesn't want to work. There are a lot of mentally ill people in situations like this. I don't know...I respect your opinion, but I think you're projecting your morals (for lack of a better word) on people that are nothing like you. Not everyone is strong or smart. Or sane.
share
Fair enough. You don't need to agree. All I ask is that you understand.
Not everyone is going to achieve success. Like I said, it's simple, but NOT easy in any economic system. For those people there is welfare, charities and churches.
BTW, speaking of welfare, do you find it odd that people constantly talk about Social Security and/or Medicare going broke, but nobody ever says anything about Welfare going broke?
π
To be honest, I've never considered that. Very interesting!
shareEven more meaningless is discussing the idea that any federal government program is "broke". Broke means you have no money. We should only have is so good.
The U.S. government is so far beyond broke that the word has no meaning.
According to the web site www.usdebt.org, the U.S. is currently over $22 Trillion in debt. The actual amount is over $22,367,617,000,000. I put 0's for the last four places because they're spinning faster than a slot machine. That's over $182,124 per every man, woman and child in the U.S.
And sadly, there is no end in sight.
π
But you don't need to listen to me. Listen to Wal-Mart CEO Doug McMillon's advice for success at your job:
1. Don't forget your short term objectives. Whatever you've been asked to do, do it really well, deliver results, and do it with integrity.
2. Be a great teammate. Helping other people develops your leadership skills, and people start to see you as a natural leader.
3. Take on a challenge or task that isn't getting done. Those are great learning opportunities, and occasionally you can change something there, and people tend to notice it.
In my 33 1/2 year career in the corporate world (all at one company), I did all of these, and I can attest to them being completely accurate, and the keys to success.
π
You have a fantasy world view of reality. It's not as simple as you try to make it sound. Just because someone lucky enough to end up as CEO of Wal-Mart says something doesn't make it true. The reality is that millions of people are working just as hard, or harder, than Doug McMillon, but luck and/or circumstance aren't such that they are finding success.
Your simple recipe of "get an education, get a job, and work very hard. Try to advance in your job, or get a better one. Don't spend more than you make. Save and invest" doesn't take into account reality.
Nope. It's cold sober reality. No fantasy. But reality is not always pleasant. You're not understanding what I'm saying. It IS simple, but it's NOT easy. Not everyone can do it. Some are too stupid, some are too lazy, and some just give up too easily.
Everything Mr. McMillon said is true. I can attest to it from my corporate career.
And everything I said IS reality. Apparently you just don't understand reality.
π
Or perhaps you are unable to consider that you are wrong? Just because something worked for you doesn't mean it can work for everyone. There are many, many reasons a person can end up in poverty, and many, probably most, are not there because of stupidity, laziness, or lack of effort. People work hard and make good choices but still end up in bad situations. Children are born daily into terrible situations, and grow up without guidance, and never learn, or learn too late, how to succeed. They weren't stupid or lazy, they were simply unlucky to be born when and where they were born.
share
Or perhaps you are unable to consider that YOU are wrong. It doesn't matter what your situation is, what matters is what you make of it. I'll try this one more time: Success is simple. It is NOT easy.
Not everyone is going to get rich. Some are going to remain in poverty, but if they try hard enough, they can at least obtain a reasonable life. They are thousands of jobs out there which go unfilled every day. And for those who are unable to hack it, there are churches, charities, and of course good ol' Uncle Sam.
Do you understand the words I am typing?
π
I understand the words you're typing, but I don't believe them to be true. I see far too many examples every day of intelligent, hard-working people being crushed down by a system for which they have no control, and whose lives are decided not by how hard they work, but by luck and circumstances, which again, they can't control.
share
Of course they're true.
Okay, please tell me which economic system in this world does NOT crush intelligent, hard-working people. It happens. Too bad, so sad. Like I said, success is simple, but it's not easy.
If you work your butt off, you can get ahead.
π
I think your problem is that you don't comprehend the meaning of the words "simple" and "easy". You seem to think that they mean the same thing. They don't. They have completely different meanings.
If success were "easy", everyone would be able to achieve it. But it's not. So if you have an IQ of 80, you're not going to get a high paying white collar job. You might not even be able to get a good blue collar job. You're going to have to do manual labor, or work in a restaurant.
But is IS simple.
And nobody's life is controlled by luck and circumstances, unless they ALLOW it to be. They may hinder a person, but if that person is willing to work his butt off, he can overcome any and all "luck and circumstances". The path to success is seldom straight, and usually goes through failure. The key is to not let failure stop you.
π
Remember this dude is Mr. 33 Years in a Corporate Job. Dude never worked a real job in his life.
shareit's certainly true that some people just have bad luck, and can't make a go of things. perfection is not for this world, and there's a variety of bad fates that can befall the best people.
but on average, if you do these three things:
finish high school
get a job
don't have children before getting married
you will have a pretty good life. you will not become ceo of walmart probably. but you will almost certainly not be poor. you will likely have a very good middle class life, or even do much better.
there's no guarantee, true. but all of us are playing averages every time we make any kind of life decision.
having said all that, i think florida project is a great movie, one of the best of the past few years. it's bursting with humanity, & i genuinely feel sorry for all the people who lead these kinds of lives.
sean baker is one of the best film makers going i say.
I agree!
A slice of life movie that most here would never see.
Dafoes performance gave us hope imo
That sounds very good on paper, but it won't take you very far in the real world. What percentage of poor Americans, drug-addicted Americans, homeless Americans, and otherwise in-a-bad-place Americans did the three things you listed? More than half? Probably. Certainly a large percentage of them. How did they end up where they are even though they finished high school, got a job, and didn't have children before marriage?
It makes sense that not doing the things you listed will put additional pressure on one's attempt to find success, but it's an empty platitude to say that by doing those three things you'll have a pretty good life.
it's not a platitude. it's a fact, & it actually does take you very far in the world.
of the people who do those things, only 2% are in poverty, and about 3/4 earn $55k or more - those are u.s. stats, but they are unlikely to be much different in canada, where i live.
and if you look at the stats for people who live continuously below the poverty line (an important distinction - lots of people have periods in their life where they have a low income. far fewer are truly poor throughout their lives) they are statistically much more likely to have not done one, two or all of those things.
& it's also important to look at homeless people as a distinct population, as they tend to have their own issues that lead to that outcome - addiction, mental illness chief among them.
none of which is to say that these are simple things to achieve, either. please don't misunderstand where i'm coming from. there are multiple, complicated factors that lead to these bad outcomes, & i certainly don't agree with the other poster here who seems to think these people deserve no sympathy. i completely disagree.
i believe the exact opposite. almost all of these people are in their circumstances due to things they do not control, whether it's their iq, their innate lack of impulse control, the culture of the community in which they were raised & schooled, their parents. they had no control over such things, and i don't think there are obvious actions that we can take to help them either.
if you haven't read them, i highly recommend robert putnam's books 'bowling alone' & 'our kids' and charles murray's 'coming apart.' all three are chock-full of stats & insights into the various trends that have led to less social integration & diminishing of the kind of community that once went some ways to helping people who tend to live & stay in poverty.
It is possible for someone to do all three and still not succeed nor advance in your job. I have had it happen to me. No one who knows me, even my stingy, greedy employers, could ever accuse me of being lazy or unmotivated or even uninnovative. It's just that in capitalism, the lower classes are necessary in order for the upper class to thrive. If everyone followed these "rules for success" and they actually worked, then there would be no janitors or garbage men. We would have to pay hard working blue collar workers millions of dollars and inflation would go through the roof. Which would just create new classes of millionaires, billionaires, trillionaires, and so on and so on until money was just an abstract idea. More so than it already is.
share
Wow! A blast from the past!
Perhaps you thought you were doing all three, but apparently in the eyes of your employer, you were not. And it's the employer who makes the final decision. Or perhaps your employers were just dicks. In that case, you needed to quit and find a better job.
And there will always be janitors and garbage men, because some people just don't have the brains, talent and/or drive to succeed. And some people are just lazy.
π
The director just wanted to bring to screen a subculture that most people don't know anything about. While the story is fiction, it's based on real-life news stories that he had read about impoverished families living in these motels in the shadow of Disney World.
Here's a quick sound bite from him on why he made the film:
"All the news stories focused on the juxtaposition we ended up focusing on β children growing up in budget motels just outside the place we consider the happiest and the most magical place on earth for children. I saw the potential in a narrative fiction film taking place in that world."
That's taken from this article, on the making of the film:
https://www.screendaily.com/interviews/sean-baker-on-the-story-behind-the-florida-project-/5125160.article
Still a terrible film imho.
π
I didn't find it overly entertaining and it's not a film that I would watch again, but I did find it to be an interesting one-time watch. It's very naturalistic and indie and doesn't have a conventional narrative.
It also seems like a film that didn't cost a lot to make, and I am always interested any time a movie is made on very little money.
I respect your opinion, but disagree. I found it revolting. He seemed to be glorifying these lazy, shiftless people.
π
I didn't walk away feeling like the people involved were particularly good people. I thought the film stayed morally neutral. I didn't think it was taking much of a stance either way. It was just opening a window to their world.
It's up to the viewer to decide what they think about that world.
Fair enough.
π
I was interested in the movie, because it tells the story of poor people whose lives are just not depicted much in movies anymore. There are many people in the US living this kind of life and, like it or not, they are not going anywhere. The movie seemed like a documentary and not a movie with actors. Pretty realistic, gruesome content.
share
Fair enough, but I still think it stunk.
π
I don't understand where you are coming from. You are asking downtrodden characters to do what is right. We have had characters like this in fiction and movies for many years. This movie is nothing new. I appreciated the realism, but it isn't a movie I would watch again. Good acting for sure. I was pretty confused by the ending. I think the kids die at the end for some reason.
share
Good acting yes, but a terrible message.
π
There really isn't a clear message; at least not for me. Most of it seemed more like a documentary. It just sort of showed us the lives of these people; the good and the mostly bad. They weren't celebrating the characters or making justifications for their plight, but were just showing a segment of the population who are, for whatever reason, unable or unwilling to climb out of the muck and become responsible citizens.
share
Not a documentary. Good acting, occasionally funny, but a terrible message. Glorifying a bunch of lazy bums.
π
I didn't say it was a documentary; I said it felt like it could be one. I don't know how it glorified these people since the mother goes to jail and two of the kids probably die at the end. Your perspective is quite different than mine. I honestly didn't get any clear message out of the movie except for the fact that poverty sucks.
share
Okay then.
π
I saw it as an indictment on the American middle class. The man who Halley stole the Disney resort passes from was a family man who brought his family to go to Disney World. In his spare time, he sneaks away from his family to go to his own idea of Disney World, which is sex with a prostitute. These two worlds, Disney World and the poverty-stricken world of the motel, both exist because of the patronage of middle-class America. We will only admit to the existence of only one of them and pretend we're as wholesome as the image Disney projects, while the other we sweep under the rug because don't want to look in the mirror and see that we're corrupt and exploit the poor. The consequence is that children like Moonie will grow up as poor and future-less as her mother.
Maybe it was, but if so, that's a bunch of leftard bullshit!
It was a pos glorifying a bunch of lazy, irresponsible bums. The family man having sex with a prostitute is no justification for their scummy behavior. Bad behavior does NOT justify other bad behavior. One has nothing to do with the other. The lazy irresponsible bums would be the same regardless of what the family man did.
π
Now that I think about it, I think the message is more along the lines that the poor exist because the middle class willfully ignores them. This is despite us being fully aware of them and having the ability to help out. We just choose not to.
We have the ability to help out because you have to be pretty well off to be able to afford to take your family to Disney World. We prefer to use our wealth to visit Disney World however than to help the poor. When our disposable income does ever go to the poor, it's to exploit them like the man who visits Halley as a prostitute. It's bad enough that we ignore their plight, but some of us actively perpetuate the cycle of poverty, so we aren't the ideal of wholesomeness and family values that Disney advertises to attract our business. If we don't change, then another generation (Moonie's) is at stake.
I think that's what they're trying to say. Whether it's valid social commentary or not, there are arguments that go the other way. The behavior of the motel residents is pretty appalling, so they're not exactly blameless for their situation either.
No, it has absolutely nothing to do with the middle class. That's socialist bullshit.
In fact, they would be in much worse shape if not for the generosity of the middle class and the wealthy. Billions are given to charities for them every year. In the USA in 2017 we contributed $390 Billion to charities! No informed person would say that we are ignoring the poor.
The poor exist because they're either too lazy, too ignorant, or too unskilled to be able to do any job which pays well.
Or they're handicapped or on drugs. In some cases, they're all of the above.
π
Hey, I'm just trying to figure out what this movie is trying to say and not advocate its position. It's so unconventionally structured, it leaves you scratching your head. But you get the impression it's trying to say something. Otherwise it's just kids running around and adults acting poorly.
It certainly sounds like you're advocating the movie's faulty message.
π
You are obviously a troll, but I just want to say that you are faulty in assuming that this film is glorifying poverty or making a statement in any way. With it's complete lack of plot the movie is obviously a voyeuristic film, meant for us to see a day in the life of these characters. And if you have even spent a week in Orlando you would see just how true to form it is. We get no background or motivation from any characters. No resolution of conflict. And no concrete story line. The motel manager Bobby, at one point has a conversation with the guy (who is he, a brother?) where is angry that happy birthday was said on his behalf. Whose birthday? Who was that guy? It's not important to the film. Because the film is not a linear story but a "fly on the wall" perspective on the lives of the people who inhabit that motel. Quit trying to make it political.
share
You're free to think whatever you want, and I don't really care. But I'm not a troll. I'm just an average movie goer who thought this film was a POS.
π
I watched it again last night. What makes you think this movie is βglorifyingβ this life style? It sure didnβt strike me as anything glamorous. Iβm not going to quit my job and go live in a sleazy motel. I thought it showed a horrible way of life, esp for the poor little kids.
Not picking a fight. Just sayinβ. Looks like a horrible shit life.
Yes I think OP either missed the point of the film or has some agenda. Anyway I thought it was a great unique film! We need more of these low budget independent productions that mix established stars (Willem Dafoe) with newcomers with original creative scripts. There's way too much big budget superhero garbage, and too little of quality.
share
Wow! A blast from the past!
No, I don't think I missed the point. I just disagreed with it. The film seems to suggest that these people are in a terrible situation because of society somehow. To me, that's bullshit. They're where they are because they made bad decisions. You are responsible for your own choices, both good and bad. Nobody else is.
π
I don't see how it suggests it's society's fault. It has an existential perspective: that's just how things are. But it succeeded in that it had an improvised feel that let the actors be expressive, and they're true personalities came out.
share
We'll have to agree to disagree on this one.
π
I ENJOYED IT..WATCHED IT A FEW TIMES NOW...THE WIFE ENJOYED IT TOO.
shareThis movie is depressing crap, for no apparent purpose. The people in it are repulsive human shit stains that make an excellent case for abortion. After watching it I felt like taking a long scalding shower and burning the clothes I was wearing.
Oh, right, I just "didn't get it". Okay.
I agree completely. It was a pos.
π