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Excellent adaptation.

The film was still a fun one that will make you laugh and have you leaving the theater feeling like you just stole something valuable and got away with it.

Unshakable, witty and deeply felt, the film will be paying emotional dividends for a long, long time.

Watching it is like watching the spectacle of a class clown at their best: you laugh at their jokes, instigate their defiance, and "ooooh" when they get in trouble.

So there's a mini movie theater in my town and sometimes they have free movie screenings. Last night I went to see this with a friend. We got high right before it started and honestly I don't think I'd understand it even if I wasn't high. It has a really nice vibe and makes you feel things. I'd say it's worth the watch because of how interesting is, to me at least. I'd give it a 10/10 but it wasn't that great.

Yeah this movie could have been Oscar worthy if it weren't for that terribly executed, irredeemably bad ending. I get the premise of it but I refuse to believe that there couldn't have been a better way to do it. I was loving everything else up until the last 60 seconds, which was seriously one of the most unsatisfying endings to any film that came out in 2017. It's such a shame.

The Florida Project is one of those movies that you just can't seem to look away from. Overall, I am not unhappy that I watched it (although I was initially), but it is not one I will be watching many times over. In an interview Sean Baker talks about the empathy we feel for the mother and I'm sorry to say that I felt none for her because the filmmaker didn't let me. If they had allowed me to meet people in Halley's life that knew her before she ended up like this, it would have humanized her. I felt nothing for the mother (Halley) other than disapproval. Moonee was hard to like throughout the film and the only reason I felt anything for her is purely the fact that she is a child in a situation that you would never want a child to be in. I don't think Baker did a good job directing her performance except for the last sequence.The character I latched onto the most was William Dafoe's character because he was written with such a complexity and played in such a raw way that I was enamored throughout. The only reason this film came up at the Oscars was because of him clearly. I have heard it compared to Barry Jenkins' Moonlight and my instant reaction is to push back on that. Moonlight was able to craft the coming of age tale in a creative and fresh way. Moonlight immersed you in real scenarios of pain and struggle as one of the characters. Meanwhile, The Florida Project made me feel often as a fly on the wall in the scenes I was more of an observer than embodying the character which made me just want to call the police and end the movie. The most interesting concept the film touches on is kids growing up so close to "the happiest place on earth," but never going there and living in quite the opposite. It did a good job of plunging you into the area of the highway most people just pass right by. I love that the ending doesn't wrap up in a nice little bow and I like some of the scenes that explore childhood shenanigans. I don't hate that this film exists, I think it is important that filmmakers explore this style of cinema veritas, but they can't forget that there still needs to be an affective screenplay (something that I heard Baker often deviates from). In my opinion this movie was close to being something great, but instead is just good. Adding some complexity rather than stubbornness to main characters would have helped.

Willem Dafoe is the glue that holds all of the other pieces together in "The Florida Project." Without Dafoe, who plays the even-keeled motel manager Bobby Hicks, this cinema verité styled film would disintegrate into loosely tied together improvisational scenes featuring non professional and first time actors. Dafoe is at his best when his character struggles to manage the moral dilemmas he's presented at the hands of the guests of his "Magic Castle Motel," most of which are more like permanent residents. At times he is a strict disciplinarian and rule enforcer. At other times he is a playful and compassionate guardian. Waiting to see which part of Bobby's personality emerges in the middle of any of his many guests' crises proves to be just as nail bitingly anxious as the unraveling of their eventual fates.