This is the movie that put me onto Sean Baker and it’s a one of a kind film. Baker has a reputation of creating films that centers societal outcasts and this movie centers on the dispossessed population of frequent hotel renters/people who are at risk of homelessness in Florida. At first, you think the movie will be about Moonee and her relationship with Jancey as they explore the world of Kissimmee unattended with their antics but it becomes very clear that Moonee’s mother (Halley) is the driving force for this particular movie. She is such a resilient and caring mother and the audience knows she has so much stacked against her that we want to see her win, despite her glaring parenting faults. Buyers beware, but a lot of people put too much weight in its controversial ending, and I think there’s so much more to say about Bobby, the hotel manager (acred by Willem Dafoe). I am not the most literate cinephile in the world, and to be real I did not “know Dafoe’s game”, but the moral crisis he had to endure was so real, that I think that people who work in social “helping” professions should seriously examine the boundary between helping and enabling, especially when social systems fail and people are left helpless and desperate. After this movie, I watched more than a few more of Baker’s films— Tangerine, Red Rocket, and I’ve been sleeping on Anora but that’s on my list before the end of the year (in like two days). Seriously, I can’t celebrate this movie enough.
