The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel: Women Can Be Funny Too!

As a fan of women, comedy, Amy Sherman-Palladino, and the 1950s, it was a given that I should enjoy The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel. And yet I hesitated for the longest time because I thought it would be a bit too trite. I thought of Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip - a show that I loved, but which always failed when trying to demonstrate how funny the comedy show within the show was. Comedy is a difficult beast, and I wasn't sure I would be able to watch a show about a woman who breaks into stand-up comedy, because so much depends on whether or not she's actually any good. Thankfully, by casting Rachel Brosnahan as the titular Mrs. Maisel, the show hit the jackpot.

Set in 1958, the show tells the story of Miriam "Midge" Maisel, a Jewish housewife living on the Upper West Side with her husband Joel and their two kids. Joel is a businessman, but on the side he harbors ambitions of being a stand-up comedian and drags Midge to the Gaslight Cafe on Lower East Side to try out his routines (many of which are stolen from other comedians). Midge is his biggest supporter, taking notes on how many laughs he gets and ways that he could improve his delivery, but she foolishly believes that this is all just a hobby for him. What she doesn't realize is that he is having a full-blown crisis, and when he ends up leaving her for his secretary, she gets very drunk, shows up at the Gaslight, and does her own routine about how her life is falling apart. Which catches the eye of Susie (Alex Borstein), an employee at the Gaslight, who decides that she is going to become Midge's manager.

The first season is only eight episodes long, so let's not spoil too much plot. Instead, let's discuss what makes this show a delight to watch. Set in the 1950s, you of course have the aesthetics. The costumes and production design on this show are staggering. Every outfit Midge wears is like something out of I Love Lucy, except in vibrant color. They don't seem like they would be particularly comfortable and she spends a lot of her time obsessing over her body proportions so those clothes continue to fit. But I certainly wouldn't mind twirling around in one of those dresses for a few hours before I passed out. And her apartment, the comedy clubs, the department store - everything is brimming with little knickknacks and flourishes that don't make you doubt the time period for a second. All accompanied by a perfect soundtrack, featuring Ms. Barbra Streisand at strategic moments for maximum impact.

Then there's the acting. Brosnahan is a class act, able to capture all the dramatic turns in Midge's life and then channel them into raucous comedy at her stand-up sets. She has a face you can't tear away from and pitch-perfect delivery that makes you immediately understand why Susie would be so captivated by this bizarre woman and her marital woes. Alex Borstein as Susie is a perfect foil to Brosnahan's Midge, the complete antithesis of everything Midge holds dear. While Midge is always dolled up and gorgeous, Susie wonders around in rumpled pants and jackets, constantly being mistaken for a man. But the two of them worship comedy, and form a fast friendship and partnership. There's a moment when Midge breaks down and tells Susie that part of her job as a good manager is to just listen to her cry (boy can I relate). My favorite part of the show is watching them craft the "perfect 10," i.e. ten minutes of meticulously precise comedy that will score with audiences every time. The emphasis on timing, word choice, joke structure - it all goes to show you that creating comedy is no accident, it takes true dedication.

This is also a very Jewish show. Midge and Joel are the children of Jewish immigrants who take their heritage very seriously, and it's always entertaining to watch the families interact or see how they deal with the separation. Tony Shalhoub and Marin Hinkle are particularly wonderful as Midge's loving but long-suffering parents. The more you learn about her mother, the more you understand how Midge turned out the way she did, and there is certainly a great deal of emphasis on the way women were in the 50s and their constant struggle to pretend to be what they're not. Being a comedienne was absolutely unthinkable for someone from Midge's background, and I cannot wait to see what happens as she gets more famous and has to deal with more criticism precisely because she is a woman. Of course, she is embarking on this career from an extremely privileged position - she does not lack for money or love, and if this career doesn't work out, she has a family who will do anything to support her. This show is not going to tell you anything about the travails of being from the working class or being a person of color in 1950s America. But it's still damn good television.

The routines featured in The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel are genuinely funny, with jokes you would pay for at a comedy club. When Midge leaves the club, everything she endures in her life is both dramatic but brimming with potential, and it is a joy to see how Midge can take a potentially terrible moment in her life and mine it for laughs from an audience. That's why comedy is so difficult - you often have to create it from tragedy. By sticking to only eight episodes, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel gives us a tight season that is both beautiful to look at and entertaining to experience. Much like Midge's routines, this is a meticulously crafted show that knows exactly how to keep its audience laughing and wanting more. 

Darkest Hour: A Story Worth Repeating

Let's get this out of the way: Gary Oldman is winning the Best Actor Oscar for his performance in Darkest Hour. No contest. I went to see this movie because it was inevitable that he would be nominated, but I didn't think I would care for the rest of the film. However, in all the talk about Oldman, it had completely escaped my notice that Joe Wright directed this movie. Ever since his debut film, Pride & Prejudice, I have been a massive fan of Joe Wright's work (OK fine, like the rest of the world, I didn't watch Pan), and Darkest Hour features much of his trademark flair. Therefore, while I walked into the theater with some trepidation, I walked out very happy indeed.

This movie takes place in May 1940, when Neville Chamberlain is forced to step down as the Prime Minister of the UK and hands the reins over to Winston Churchill, the only man that the opposition Labour Party will accept. Churchill is not anyone's cup of tea; King George VI has reservations, while the Conservative Party are taking their cues from Chamberlain and Lord Halifax, who are still keen on their policies of appeasement and wary of Churchill's fierce rhetoric. As Churchill fills his War Cabinet with allies and enemies, the crisis in Dunkirk unfolds, and he must immediately begin to make painful decisions about how to lead his country and whether he is willing to sacrifice the lives of thousands of young soldiers. 

It is a compelling period in WWII history, as evidenced by the fact that last year we already got a brilliant movie about it, Dunkirk. But while Christopher Nolan's focus was on the men fighting on the beaches, Joe Wright's focus is on the behind-the-scenes politics and military strategy of that historic event, concluding with Churchill's rousing "We shall fight on the beaches" speech in Parliament on June 4, 1940. I love Churchill and his deft command of the English language, and World War II always held my fascination ever since I first read about it in History class in eighth grade. Yes, as my friend Laura put it, all World War II movies feel the same, but they are not always told with such artistry and style, and there are elements of this movie that I found so compelling that I simply did not mind watching these events unfold on screen for the umpteenth time. However, one issue I had was that I already associated actors from The Crown, Dunkirk, and The King's Speech with some of these historical figures. It certainly took me a while to get accustomed to Oldman's interpretation of Churchill, when I've been so used to watching John Lithgow for the past two years.

The acting is top notch. Honestly, I did not recognize Gary Oldman for a single second in this movie. I kept trying to, but I simply could not. The kudos for that should really go to makeup wizard Kazuhiro Tsuji, but Oldman certainly nails the accent, cigar-smoking, champagne-swilling, booming and rapid speechifying Churchill-ness of it all. Kristin Scott Thomas is excellent as his wife, Clementine, a woman who has always let her husband put his political ambitions ahead of his family but serves as his closest confidante and ally. Lily James is wonderful as Elizabeth Layton, Churchill's private secretary, who typed up so many of those magnificent speeches and firmly believes that "no one puts words together" quite like him. They share one scene in particular where no words are exchanged and it brings a lump to your throat to realize what these two people have been together in such a short period of time. Ben Mendelsohn is also wonderful as King George VI, the monarch who gradually comes to realize Winston's worth and becomes an unexpected friend. Yes, you feel bad that he has to compete against Colin Firth's Oscar-winning work in The King's Speech, but he holds his own.

When Joe Wright makes a movie, he creates a whole world. The production design and costumes are always stellar, and he tends to compose and edit scenes using peculiar angles or intricate cuts that absolutely delight my soul. There are certain transitions in this movie, like when a bloody battle scene slowly melts into the image of a solitary dead soldier's face, where you understand the full scale of war, from the bombing of swathes of countryside to the loss of each individual life. There is a running theme of ticking clocks, and the counting down of each day to reveal what enormous pressure Churchill is under and how this war is spiraling out of control on an hourly basis. The tunnels connecting Downing Street to the War rooms are dank and gloomy, and every meeting of the War Cabinet is taking place in a dark haze of cigar smoke and dim electric lighting. Churchill's pink pajamas have a little CSW monogram, his wife's coiffure is perfect at all times, and Elizabeth Leyton's typewriter is constantly hammering away in the background, committing those famous words to the annals of history. The tracking shots of Parliament reminded me of how much fun it is to watch Prime Minister's Questions and the score by Wright's longtime collaborator, Dario Marianelli, is unsurprisingly magnificent and will immerse you in the time period. The only misstep is an awful sequence involving Churchill taking the Tube to Westminister. It is a glaringly contrived moment in a movie that otherwise feels vivid and true. 

Darkest Hour is a wonderful movie and the hype around Oldman's performance is well-earned. But thankfully, that performance is not the only reason to watch. There's so much to love, whether you are a connoisseur of history, film, or politics. It's cinematic poetry, and while Churchill may have had a way with words, Joe Wright certainly has a way with movies. 

The Post: Stodgy Storytelling

The Post is a stereotypical awards contender. 1. Directed by Steven Spielberg; 2. starring Tom Hanks and Meryl Streep; 3. telling the true story of the journalists who published the Pentagon papers in 1971 about the scope of the US government's machinations in the Vietnam War. Everything about this screams, "Oscar!" and yet that might be its very undoing. Because wrapped in such glossy packaging, the actual content of this film fails to deliver.

Streep plays Kay Graham, the new owner of the Washington Post following her husband's suicide. She is a woman who wakes up every morning with newspapers strewn about her blankets and her glasses on the verge of being crushed. She has hired Ben Bradlee (Tom Hanks) as the dogged editor-in-chief of her beloved Post, but even he can't do enough to improve the paper's finances, so she is preparing for the Post's IPO, where members of the public will be able to buy stock and diminish her family's control of the newspaper. She loves the Post with all of her heart but she was raised to be a socialite rather than a businesswoman, and much of this movie pays homage to the struggles she faced being the only woman in a boardroom or at the stock exchange, and the soul-crushing impostor syndrome that accompanied her every decision. As a woman with her fair share of struggles in that department, that is perhaps the only part of this movie that appealed to me and was conveyed well by Streep.

However, the story itself is a bit anticlimactic. After all, the New York Times initially got their hands on the Pentagon Papers. It was only after Nixon's Attorney General banned them from publishing that the Washington Post stepped up, found the Times' source, and published the Papers themselves after much agonized deliberation between Bradlee and Graham. Therefore, there's less excitement about reporters finding the scoop, than there is footage of reporters putting papers together in numerical order as Bradlee's long-suffering wife serves them sandwiches. There are important monologues about freedom of the press or the government overstepping its bounds, and swelling music anytime a Supreme Court decision is announced, accompanied by a choking sob and teary eyes. It's not subtle, unless your definition of subtlety is being hit in the head with an anvil while someone kicks your shin with a lead-toed boot.

I truly wanted this movie to be better. But I always felt like the actors were acting really hard and didn't lose themselves in their roles, the music was hammering me into submission, and every scene was nudging me to a foregone conclusion. There are no surprises in this movie - we already know what happened, and the manufactured stakes feel a bit trite and cliched. My favorite part of the film might simply be the wonderful shots of the printing press and watching how a newspaper actually gets made, from the frantic typing of the reporter, to the rapid editing, painstaking linotype, running of the presses, and eventual distribution across the Eastern seaboard. While the advent of computers must have certainly made things easier, this movie did make me long to see an actual printing press in action.

The Post is a solid movie. Solid, but also stolid. The best parts about it are its depiction of being a woman in a powerful position at the time, and its depiction of how a newspaper gets made. In terms of its earnest defense of freedom of the press, I get it, Spielberg had ulterior motives, making this movie in a quick nine months right after Trump was elected President. It's eerie to see how elements of this story from the 70s mirror our current national state. This entire movie can be summed up by the Washington Post's motto: Democracy Dies in Darkness. But I don't think we needed this movie to remind us that we need to join the Resistance. 

Phantom Thread: Gorgeously Odd

Phantom Thread is a sumptuous movie. It plays on all your senses, drawing you into its world, and binding you to the odd trio of characters at its center, who are playing a delicate game of wills that is full of mystery and madness. The costumes are gorgeous (don't even bother voting, give Mark Bridges the Best Costume Design Oscar), the food looks delicious, the music (and tactical silences) keep you firmly entrenched in this world, and when it's all over, you have to give yourself a little shake to step out of the 1950s and back into reality.

Set in London, this movie tells the story of Reynolds Woodcock (Daniel Day-Lewis), a dressmaker adored by high society ladies and even European royalty. His sister, Cyril (Lesley Manville), manages the business and manages her brother, ensuring that his life continues just the way he likes it so as not to disturb his delicate artistic temperament. This includes managing the various ladies he brings into their house to serve as his muse for a few months, before they begin to wear on him and need to be tactfully "handled" by Cyril. However, when he finds Alma (Vicky Krieps), a waitress in a restaurant, and invites her into his world, both he and Cyril discover they may have finally found a woman who knows how to play their ridiculous games.

Written and directed by Paul Thomas Anderson, it's hard to go into much more detail about this movie without basically giving away the entire plot. And it's a profoundly weird plot that I have discussed with multiple people over the past week; everyone has slightly different interpretations of what motivates these characters and why they end up doing what they do. Perhaps that's what makes this an intriguing film - nothing about it is very clear, and it serves as a bit of a Rorschach test of your psyche to examine what you took away from it all.

However, there are a few things I do know about this film. First, the acting is impeccable. Everyone has been going on about Daniel Day-Lewis, and I suspect that is motivated more by the fact that this is supposedly his last movie. I, however, was profoundly in love with the performances of the two women. Going into this movie, I feared it would be all about Reynolds, the troubles of being a man surrounded by women, and the first world problems that accompany the artistic temperament. Instead, it became a deviously funny and intriguing triangle with Cyril and Alma trying to suss each other out to see who was best suited to managing Reynolds and his eccentricities. Manville and Krieps deliver outstanding performances, conveying more with wry expressions than with their sarcastic dialogue, and gradually forming an unlikely partnership.

Second, while the overarching plot of this movie may have been confusing, it strings together moments in an absolutely delightful way. There are three distinct scenes where Alma is eating breakfast with Cyril, and the evolution of their relationship is completely captured by how much noise she makes while buttering her bread. It's simply extraordinary.

Speaking of extraordinary, the movie is an aesthetic masterpiece. Every dress featured in the movie is a delicate confection that I immediately wanted to wear, and there is a scene where Alma is participating in a fashion show and cannot keep the joy off her face as she slips into one exquisite dress after another and twirls around in front of the potential buyers. The main house they live in is an alabaster altar to fashion, very stark and clean, with a dizzying spiral staircase that makes you want to run down it with a dress with a long train trailing out behind you. The score, by Jonny Greenwood, is a constant presence, only fading at acute moments (like breakfast) when some serious drama is about to go down. And then there's the food, and the tea, and the painstaking attention to detail that make everything about this film make you long to live in 1950s London and shove your face full of scones all day.

Phantom Thread won't be everyone's cup of tea (pun intended). But it is compelling cinema featuring virtuoso performances from its leading actors and utter dedication from every member of the crew. The lighting, makeup, costume, production design, and cinematography all meld together to make every frame feel like a painting that should be hung in the National Gallery. Even if you find yourself bewildered by the bizarre plot and these decidedly unusual characters, you will surely find yourself enchanted by their surroundings.

If you want to read a spoilerific transcript of my friend Alan and I trying to make sense of this movie right after watching it, head on over to his article on Geekly, Inc!

I, Tonya: Skate Your Heart Out

The Winter Olympics should pay the producers of I, Tonya a hefty sum for advance publicity. Because after watching this glorious movie, I cannot wait to watch the Figure Skating competition in February. I went to see this movie with my colleagues, Bhavini and Diana, and when we left the theater, onlookers in Times Square may have been amused to note Diana, a figure skater, twirling in the lobby as she attempted to demonstrate the intricacies of a triple axel to us. And that, in a nutshell, is the power of this film. It will make you want to rush home, watch figure skating videos, and then head to a rink with your skates.

Written by Steven Rogers and directed by Craig Gillespie, I, Tonya is a look at the life of American figure skater, Tonya Harding, and the events that led to the infamous "incident," where her Olympic competitor, Nancy Kerrigan, was attacked by an extremely incompetent hitman. Everyone who hears the name Tonya Harding immediately thinks of the attack, some even going so far as to mis-remember it as Harding directly attacking Kerrigan. But this movie is an attempt to humanize Harding, warts and all, and help us understand the life she led, and the struggles and mistakes along the way that led to the derailment of her dreams.

The movie is such an entertaining ride that I am loath to give away any plot. However, let's discuss the elements that make this such a superior film. First, the focus on socioeconomic status in skating is rather remarkable. Harding was always denigrated as "white trash," and it is heartbreaking to witness how her working class and abusive background posed such a profound barrier to her ability to successfully compete in the sport she loved. Judges refused to give her high scores in spite of her incredible athletic ability - she was the first American woman to land a triple axel in competition (only eight other female figure skaters in the world have accomplished this as of 2018) but she was too muscled, her costumes were too inelegant, and her music selection wasn't refined enough to allow her to get top marks. One of the more devastating moments in the film is when she is arguing with a judge about why so much emphasis is placed on her background and presentation and she chokingly says, "I don't have a wholesome family. Why can't it just be about the skating?!"

Second, the movie has a fascinating tone. Billed as a dark comedy, it is wickedly funny with a bizarre and excellent soundtrack. There are plenty of moments when characters break the fourth wall and directly address the audience as the absurdity mounts in particularly tense situations. The movie is also filmed partially as a mockumentary, with the various members of the story being interviewed in the present to tell their version of the events of the past. Each person's representation of the facts is skewed to suit their own ends, glossing over abuse and trauma as required. Cobbling together the "true" story proves to be an exercise in futility. But the end credits do feature some videos with the actual people, and it's wonderful to see what a brilliant job the actors did to bring these characters to the big screen. Which brings me to the third point, the acting.

Every actor in this film is superb, but none more so than Margot Robbie as Tonya Harding. Her face is the most wondrous aspect of the entire movie. Sure it's engaging to watch her battle with her mother and husband, and everyone else who treats her like crap, but the best moments of this movie are when she is alone, with the camera focused on her face, and the true Tonya comes bursting forth. The moment when she lands that triple axel and breaks out into an enormous smile is riveting. But the most arresting scene is when she is putting on her makeup before the 1994 Olympics. Stressed beyond belief, fighting tears, and smearing on rouge, that one scene is all you need to declare that the woman deserves an Oscar nomination.

Finally, as I mentioned at the very beginning, this is a movie about a woman who loved to skate. And every scene on the ice is a miraculously edited, tour-de-force performance. Yes, there are moments when you can tell there are manipulations at work to get Robbie's face on a professional skater's body. But it doesn't matter, because each skate feels like an exhilarating thrill ride; you feel like those blades are on your feet, and as the camera spins around, it takes you with it. If there were Oscars for choreography, Sarah Kawahara would win them all, while Heidi Munger and Anna Malkova should get special awards for serving as Robbie's magnificent skating doubles and pulling off a bazillion double axels just so they could be edited into one triple axel (all these years later, it's still impossible to find a skating double who can pull off a triple axel).

I, Tonya is a rousing movie about a woman who faced insurmountable odds and still managed to make her mark. Her circumstances meant she was never going to realize her dreams, but this movie gives her some redemption. It serves as a reminder that ambition will only get you so far, but society has a long way to go if we want every person who deserves the gold to actually win it. 

The Shape of Water: A (Classic?) Love Story

Guillermo del Toro loves movies, and that love always shines through his films. Therefore, it should come as little surprise that The Shape of Water, while ostensibly a movie about a romance between a woman and a fish-man (no, that's not a typo), is also a movie that revels in telling a story in the most visually striking fashion possible. The plot is very simple (you've probably figured it all out from the trailer), but there's nothing simple about the beautiful way this story unfolds on screen.

Sally Hawkins plays Elisa, a mute woman who works as a cleaning lady in a top secret government facility. She is friends with her neighbor, Giles (the always lovely Richard Jenkins), and her colleague, Zelda (the also, always lovely Octavia Spencer), and has a routine, scheduled life. However, when the "asset" arrives at one of the labs in her facility, things go haywire. The asset is a man-fish (played by Doug Jones, who is getting no credit for his work but really deserves some recognition for being trapped in this prosthetic body suit and acting his heart out) and over time, he and Elisa develop a camaraderie, perhaps owing to the fact that neither can speak but still find a way to communicate with each other. So when Elisa learns that the lab plans to kill the asset for an educational vivisection, she enlists the help of her friends to bust him out.

Every character in this movie is fairly one-dimensional, none more so than Michael Shannon who plays the villainous government agent who manages to be evil and horrifying to every single person/creature he encounters. Sally Hawkins is the only one who has real room to emote and she does so beautifully, as she has to convey all of her feeling through her facial expressions or vehement sign language. As she and the man-fish fall in love, we are treated to spectacular aquatic imagery that will make you want to dive into the ocean and go find a merman of your own.

The movie opens with a watery introduction that immediately told me what I was getting into. I kept thinking, "how do they do that," and the answer is that I really don't want to know, as long as I can keep watching such mesmerizing work on the big screen. Del Toro's love of horror does assert itself throughout the piece and there are some bloody moments that made me cringe from time to time. But then we would go back to beautiful scenes that looked like they were cut from a painting that I would happily stare at all day long. There's even an homage to Astaire & Rogers that looks like a scene out of Top Hat, because that's what us old-school cinephiles want to see: a tap dancing merman!

The Shape of Water is a drop-dead gorgeous movie. Do I think it should win the Best Picture Oscar or kudos for its Screenplay? No. But do I think it should get recognized for Special Effects, Cinematography, or even a Best Actress nod for Sally Hawkins? Yes, please.

The Florida Project: The Innocence of Childhood

I still have several Oscar-worthy movies to watch, but I'm calling it. The Florida Project is my personal pick for Best Picture this year.

Like most movies that strike a chord deep within me, The Florida Project is not flashy or cinematic, but it features characters and scenarios that pack a wallop of emotion that leaves you reeling long after the movie is done. Directed and co-written by Sean Baker, this movie lets its characters do the talking while the camera lingers lovingly on their faces so we can see the world through their eyes. And what heartbreaking eyes they are.

Set in a Florida motel on the outskirts of Walt Disney World, the movie is the story of six-year-old Moonee (Brooklynn Prince), a young girl who spends her mostly unsupervised summer days hanging out with fellow motel-dwelling children and running wild in the neighborhood. At first, I loved seeing these kids running around outside, making up silly games to play, and randomly adding members to their crew. There's a wild freedom about being a kid during the summer, and this movie celebrates the innocence and joy that can only come when you're a kid who has friends to play with, wide open spaces to have adventures in, and no rules or restrictions to abide by. Unfortunately, those first few moments of innocent enjoyment are rapidly crushed by the realization that Moonee and her friends might have such free reign of their world because they don't have access to the best parental supervision. And perhaps a seedy motel is not the best place for young children to be growing up.

Moonee's mom, Halley (Bria Vinaite), is the type of woman who most would instantly categorize as white trash. Foul-mouthed, with a shock of dyed hair and covered in tattoos, she nonetheless loves her child and gives her the best life she possibly can, under the circumstances. Via her friendships with motel residents, she scrounges up free food for her daughter and her friends, and by engaging in various money-making schemes, she manages to pay up their monthly rent to the motel manager, Bobby (Willem Dafoe). However, this is a movie about how the poor are always living on a razor's edge, and the whole time you are watching Moonee and her friends artlessly enjoy themselves, your gut is clenched in fear because this girl's life cannot possibly continue in this happy limbo for much longer.

Things slowly start to fall apart as they are wont to do. And as each little piece of the support structure Halley has built around her and her daughter starts to crumble, their world crashes down spectacularly. It is devastating to watch Halley still trying to cobble together little treats for her daughter and her friends, even as her life spirals irrevocably out of control. One of the most moving scenes of the film is when they go to an abandoned lot near Disney World and celebrate a birthday by eating a cupcake and watching the nightly fireworks light up the sky, pretending those fireworks are especially for them. In her own way, Halley is using her imagination the same way that her daughter does - she is trying to make an adventure out of her dismal circumstances, but the trouble is, as an adult, she knows it's all a fantasy, while Moonee still thinks it's all great fun.

Towards the end, there is a scene at a hotel breakfast buffet where the camera just focuses on Moonee as she stuffs her face with fruit and bacon and makes hilarious observations. I imagine that scene was improvised but it is one of the most powerful moments I've seen on screen all year - on the one hand, you have this girl who is enjoying this delicious breakfast with no thought as to how it has been acquired, and on the other hand, her mother, who has a half-smile as she watches her happy child prattle on, but whose eyes indicate that their bubble is about to burst.

I loved this movie so much. It brings you into its world and puts you firmly in the headspace of its characters, so you can feel their every joy and their every sorrow without judgement, only empathy. Willem Dafoe's character is particularly excellent, a man who tries to do his job but also reluctantly becomes a father figure to the families in his motel and looks out for them the best way that he can. He cannot stop Halley from her perilous slide, and he cannot protect Moonee 24/7, but it is gut-wrenching to watch him try. And the final scenes of the film are a perfect encapsulation of where Moonee will go from here. She will cling on to her fantasies for a little while longer, but the death of her childhood innocence is imminent.

It is common in our political climate to deride the poor and declare that they simply aren't trying hard enough. The power of a movie like The Florida Project comes from its ability to humanize the people that are casually lumped together as the "poor" and illustrate the pains they take to care for their loved ones and scrape together a day-to-day existence. Halley is an extreme example, but many of Moonee's friends' parents are poor but getting by; Halley merely fell through the cracks. This movie does a wonderful job of juxtaposing the rich and comfortable world of Disney and the poor and bleak world of the motel residents dwelling along its periphery. And yet somehow, for two hours, The Florida Project manages to make its world more magical than the Magic Kingdom.