I showed Sean Baker’s The Florida Project last week in my honors film studies class, where the honors program’s theme, “The Power of Place,” is the central unifying subject of our course.
I really love this film and could not believe it wasn’t nominated for Best Picture. Then again, one thing I’ve learned and wished I’d known much sooner in my life is the extent to which awards are arbitrary, political, and subject to both conscious and unconscious bias/prejudice/ignorance. In the case of this film, the subject matter (white welfare mothers and their children living a precarious existence in low-budget motels-cum-housing-projects at the margins of Disney World’s tourist complex) was not “deserving” enough to warrant attention, much less recognition or validation, from cinema’s oligarchs. That’s my personal take on their slight (which clearly somehow affronts me on moral grounds😂).
Anyway, one little moment from this movie that I find incredibly meaningful comes when six-year-old Moonee and her friend Jancey score a loaf of white bread from the church group that distributes food from the back of a van each week at the Magic Castle motel, where Moonee lives with her mother. The girls carry the bread to a nearby field and share a messy, sticky meal of jelly smeared over slices of bread with a spoon as they sit facing each other on what appears to be a tree branch, the jar resting between them on the bark.
“Kind of like that, don’t ya?” says Moonee. An old hand at getting free bakery items (and soft-serve ice cream cones via coins scrounged from strangers outside the Twistee Treat stand) Moonee is Jancey’s guide to the art of enjoying “found” treats.
“This is the best jelly I ever eated,” Jancey replies.
“Do you know . . . Do you know why this is my favorite tree?” asks Moonee, a closeup on her profile as she bites into a slice of bread.
“Why?” says Jancey.
“‘Cause it tipped over,” explains Moonee, licking jelly from the bread’s surface. “And it’s still growing.”
Then we cut to an extreme long shot of the tree, the two girls barely noticeable at first in the lower right-hand corner of the frame. Only as we process their presence do we realize how huge that tree is. And that, yes, it is indeed “still growing” despite its dire circumstances.
An image like a little gem of poetry.
The film is full of metaphors similar to this one. In fact, maybe the best way to deal with the movie’s unexpected final moments (uplifting? heartbreaking?) is to remember the lesson of Moonee’s tree.
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Katherine Wikoff 
I loved this film so much. It was funny, moving, terrifying, heartbreaking, and hopeful. I am also shocked (but not…) that it wasn’t at least nominated for an award. It is one of the best films I’ve seen in the last few years, and I, too, think that scene and dialogue about the tree is poignant and perfect. It’s wonderful that you have introduced your students to this movie!
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Your description of this film matches my own feelings perfectly. Eventually enough people like us who found it to be something very special will recommend it to friends and it will slowly find its way to a broader audience and gain the recognition it so richly deserved from the Academy but didn’t get.
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I watched this film on a streaming service shortly following its release. I can’t say I remembered the scene you so eloquently refer to, but the film very much stuck with me at the time and had been on my list to watch again. I recently bought it on Blu-ray and have just rewatched. I am pleased to say that it still resonates with the same sense of broken joy that affected me the first time of watching. But it was this particular scene, with the old, broken down tree that stood out for me. I don’t know why, but I was impelled to type the words of Moonee into Google, just to see if anyone else had been moved by it in the same way. So I was so pleased to discover your post. Aside from the fact it so beautifully encapsulates a central theme of the film, like all great art, it speaks of a deeper metaphor for life in general. The scene itself stood out for me for all its own immediate merits relevant to the film. But as I digest it, I am also left reflecting on how my own life has been laid very low by grief in the 3 years immediately following the film. And in those years since, I like to believe I have continued to grow, however much that grief has continued to weigh me down. Thank you so much for having written something that, for one night at least, makes me feel a little less alone and connected.
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Rick, thank you for taking the time to write such a thoughtful response to my post. If you were to check out my “home” page, you’d notice I haven’t posted anything new in a few months. That’s mostly because I’ve felt so beaten down by the whole exhausting idea of generative AI regurgitating writing it finds online so that other generative AIs can regurgitate again, and then just re-re-regurgitate it all in one horrible, endless chain of ouroboric LLMs cannibalizing themselves. Honestly, I’ve found myself thinking: What’s the point of writing anymore?
But then today I saw your response! A beautiful message from one human to another about a moment of shared humanity. This is why I started blogging, and your message reminds me that despite the AI apocalypse, there are still other people like me in the world who are going through things and trying to make sense of it all.
I’m so sorry for the grief you’ve been carrying the past several years. Your kind, articulate, and even very profound words make me feel honored and humbled. I’m glad that my reflections on this film jibe with your own thoughts. It’s validating to connect with a kindred spirit. It makes one feel, as you so wonderfully put it, a little less alone and connected. Thank you!
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Thank you for taking the time to send me such a considerate response. I really didn’t expect much more than a quick “thanks”, if that even.
I have been busy trying to sort stuff out prior to a short trip I have just embarked on, so have not had much time outside of this to look at your blog site after my registration was accepted. But I did quickly read your last blog, about the two Herring Gulls – I think these are what I can see in the photo at least. Once again, I was very much taken by your words. At the risk of sounding repetitive, there it was again – connection! It was always going to be a bit of a winning goal for me though, as Gulls are my favourite birds and a daily, characterising feature of where I live. For me, their versatile strength, grace, aloofness, and indomitable spirit far outweighs the negative qualities most my neighbours choose to focus on!
I won’t go on, other than to say that learning you were a teacher did not surprise me. Conveying facts and ideas is made a whole lot easier to receive, if people feel inspired by the “how” of sharing, as much (actually, more) than the what. I had to look up a couple of terms you referenced in fact, so I include myself in this!
But more to the point… in the UK we have a saying: “Don’t let the bastards grind you down”. I don’t mean this to belittle the frustration you express about how others may be abusing your original thoughts and reflections on life. If it has then please put it down to my ignorance on the matters you speak of. All I would add is that if your blogging brings you a sense of satisfaction of itself – and hopefully a sense of joy when you recreate the world you are describing in your own words – then try to let this be the difference you are most concerned with. And if, from time to time, you also manage to reach others like me… the world is an even shinier place to be. Thanks again, and please don’t feel obliged to respond again – keep on blogging instead!
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One last reply, and actually a question for you. I am writing a new blog post, inspired by our conversation here. I’d like to copy and paste our back-and-forth notes to each other from this post over into the new post, where I talk about being “back” to blogging again thanks to your comments on the “Florida Project” post.
All of our posts are public, but putting them into a new post would highlight them in a way you didn’t originally intend when you left your comments in the movie post about Moonee’s tree.
Would it be okay with you for me to use our conversation in the new post? No worries if not! Just don’t reply here, and then I’ll never know if that’s because you didn’t see this note or preferred not to respond. If I don’t see a reply from you, I’ll just refer to our conversation here obliquely in that new post.
Thanks so much for giving me the inspiration to start writing again!❤️
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I feel confident that you will only use my comments constructively and within the context I intended. So if they are helpful to your next blog and have indeed prompted you to return to it after a period of absence, please go ahead with my full blessing! I look forward to reading it in due course. All the very best, Rick.
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Thank you!!!
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