The Florida Project (2017)

I watched The Florida Project on a plane, which might be the only reason I finished it. You know that mix of boredom and mild captivity that makes you keep watching something you’re not sure you like? That was me, stuck in seat 17C, staring at a pastel motel and a small child screaming about ice cream.

The movie follows six-year-old Moonee (Brooklynn Prince) and her young mother Halley (Bria Vinaite) as they live week-to-week in a cheap motel near Disney World. The contrast is deliberate: a fairytale castle just down the road from poverty and survival. But the story isn’t about big, dramatic moments. It’s about the everyday details of a life on the edge, from sticky fingers to bad choices to moments of fleeting joy.

Visually, it’s stunning. Sean Baker knows how to find beauty in the ordinary and chaos in the beautiful. But as a viewer, it sometimes feels like you’ve been dropped into a behavioral experiment about empathy and endurance. How long can you watch someone struggle before you want to look away?

Why it didn’t work for me
The movie leans hard into realism, and realism can be powerful, but it can also be exhausting. From a behavioral psychology perspective, what’s happening here is something close to habituation. The more you see the same pattern of chaos and heartbreak, the less it registers. The human brain adapts. What’s shocking in the first thirty minutes becomes background noise by the end.

That may be the director’s point, but it creates an emotionally flat experience for viewers like me. There’s no sense of reward for staying through the discomfort, no clear narrative payoff. Behavioral science tells us that humans crave some kind of resolution or relief. When that doesn’t come, we disengage. Which, to be honest, is exactly how I felt.

What others see that I didn’t
Critics and film lovers adore The Florida Project because it’s unfiltered and empathetic. It treats its characters without judgment and forces you to see the humanity in lives most people overlook. That’s what makes it art. And I do admire that. I can see how someone might find it raw and beautiful.

But for me, it felt like watching the world’s longest observational study. I could see the message, but I couldn’t connect with it. The behavioral realism that made it groundbreaking for some viewers made it emotionally draining for me.

So yes, it’s well-made. It’s deeply human. And it’s probably worth watching if you love character studies or films that challenge your comfort zone. But if you’re like me and prefer a story that gives you even a small glimmer of resolution, maybe save this one for a plane. At least then, you’ll have nowhere else to go.

Who should watch it?
Watch The Florida Project if you’re drawn to realism, character-driven storytelling, or films that hold up a mirror rather than offer escape. It’s a masterclass in empathy and social observation, but it requires patience and emotional bandwidth. If you enjoy slow, observational stories like Boyhood or American Honey, this will probably move you deeply. If you’re someone who needs a clear plot arc, closure, or even a touch of hope, you might end up watching it the way I did — mostly because there was nowhere else to be.