The Florida Project's Ending Explained
Andrew Patterson Sean Baker’s bittersweet indie drama was one of 2017’s best movies, but how did it conclude? Here’s The Florida Project’s ending explained.
The ending of The Florida Project has a deeper meaning for the movie's overall message. Indie filmmaker Sean Baker has carved himself a niche in crafting slice-of-life dramas that tell the largely untold stories of people living on the fringes of modern American society. His The Florida Project characters fall into this pattern. His 2004 film Take Out depicted a day-in-the-life of an illegal Chinese immigrant working at a New York City take-out, while Baker’s breakout 2015 movie Tangerine told the tale of a transgender sex worker living in Hollywood.
With this movie, Sean Baker turned his attention to an impoverished single mother named Halley (Bria Vinaite) and her six-year-old daughter Moonee (Brooklyn Prince, in an astonishing acting debut) who live in a cheap motel in Kissimmee, Florida. Although the cheerfully named Magic Castle motel they live in is located just a few short miles from Disney World, it might as well be a whole universe away as the pair try to eke out a living under the poverty line.
Alongside Bria Vinaite and Brooklynn Prince, The Florida Project cast features Willem Dafoe - in one of the best performances of the past decade - as tough-talking but kind motel manager Bobby and Valeria Cotto as Moonee’s newfound friend Jancey, who lives at the neighboring and equally rundown Futureland Inn. The focus, however, is on Brooklyn Prince’s Moonee whose childlike wonder, innocence, and imagination elevate her above her bleak circumstances even as her mother resorts to increasingly desperate means like sex work to make ends meet. Moonee’s sense of wonder extends through The Florida Project’s bittersweet conclusion too.
What Happens in The Florida Project's Ending
The Florida Project’s ending sees Halley attract the attention of the Florida Department of Children and Families (DCF), who arrive at the Magic Castle motel with a couple of cops in tow to take Moonee into foster care. The Florida Project's protagonist, Moonee, manages to escape the DCF workers and makes it to Jancey’s motel in tears. The pair run off together past the rundown motels and cheap outlet stores on Kissimmee’s tourist strip, leaving their old world behind. The two make their way down to Disney World, flying past the ticket stops and weaving in and out of the crowds. The Florida Project's ending scene sees Moonee and Jancey running hand-in-hand down Magic Kingdom's Main Street before arriving at Disney’s Cinderella Castle: a much different castle than the one that Moonee grew up in.
Was The Florida Project's Ending Real?
Although The Florida Project's ending has been hailed as one of the best movie endings of the past decade, it left audiences divided with questions raised over whether the final scenes are real or a figment of Moonee’s imagination. After all, it would take a pair of six-year-olds quite some time to get from Kissimmee to Disney World, and slipping through the theme park’s security unnoticed would be nigh on impossible. According to director Sean Baker, The Florida Project’s ending is deliberately left open to such interpretation. As Baker clarified in an interview with the Los Angeles Times, "Now we’re telling the audience that this might not be real, but perhaps [it’s] the audience’s moment to use Moonee’s sense of imagination and wonderment to make the best of what might not be a happy ending."
What Happened To Halley?
The most heartbreaking aspect of The Florida Project's ending is Moonee being dragged away from her mother Halley, who she clearly loves with all of her heart. Unconventional, struggling "bad" mothers, like in The Queen's Gambit, have long confronted the pressures and expectations society puts on women; however, Bria Vinaite's performance as Halley brings a decent amount of complexity to the trope. Halley makes some extremely questionable decisions as Moonee's caretaker, and ultimately not much is known about her past outside of what audiences see in The Florida Project. Ultimately Halley is a single parent trying to raise her daughter in a state of poverty, and she's not above doing everything she has to in order to keep her daughter fed and their rent paid.
After The Florida Project's ending, Halley probably had to learn how to live life without her daughter. Based on Halley's personality throughout the movie, she most likely fights tooth and nail to get Moonee back. Unfortunately, because the single mother has few resources and trouble finding stable work, it's impossible that DCF would remove Moonee from her potential foster home until Halley is able to meet their prerequisites. It's sad because it's clear to viewers that Halley loves and adores her daughter to the point that she's willing to put herself at risk for her child's welfare. Unfortunately, she does end up endangering Moonee in that process.
Bobby Called DCF About Moonee
When DCF appears at the Magic Castle motel in The Florida Project's ending, it's never explicitly stated who made the final call. Audiences are led to believe that it was Ashley, the neighbor Halley beats up towards the end; however, the most likely culprit is Bobby. While Ashley was reasonably bitter about how Halley treated her, it doesn't make sense that she'd go as far as to call the authorities on her neighbor. Since Scooty, Jacey, and Moonee's parents are noticeably absent, Willem Dafoe's character Bobby is the one playing babysitter. The tough-but-kind motel caretaker is constantly making an effort to keep the kids on the property out of harm's way, including scaring off a potential pedophile. Between the kids burning down the old condos and dealing with a gentleman that Halley stole Disney tickets from, Bobby was overtly concerned for Moonee's safety; thus, he most likely made the fateful call.
Moonee Goes To A Real Magic Castle
The Florida Project's ending scene, love it or hate it, takes the audience into Moonee's perspective. Her upbringing is a strange one. While she lives near the proverbial "happiest place on earth," her home is an impermanent and unstable place. The "magic castle" that she grows up in, which doesn't live up to its Cinderella namesake, is a motel filled with people who are down on their luck, and it's consistently sneered at by tourists expecting a nicer hotel. Countless sketchy things go down at her home, between fights in the parking lot, the numerous police appearances, and Halley's nighttime visitors. Being that Moonee is a child, she doesn't understand yet that she's growing up in less than ideal conditions. To her, the Magic Castle Inn & Suites is just as magical as Cinderella's castle. In The Florida Project's ending, Moonee is able to run away in her mind to something familiar and yet more magical.
The Real Meaning of The Florida Project's Ending
The Florida Project is a movie about childhood, poverty, and children's ability to see the best in everything. While the kids live on the outer fringes of the most magical place on Earth, The Florida Project does boast a few Disney movie themes. Moonee is constantly forced to see very adult interactions that are completely outside of her understanding, but that doesn't change how she views her surroundings. To Moonee, her mother is an outstanding mom, she lives in a magic castle, and she gets to play with her best friends all day. Viewers may be troubled by the young girl's circumstances, but up until The Florida Project's ending, Moonee isn't concerned at all.
Another piece of commentary that The Florida Project makes is that of single motherhood in the midst of poverty. Halley's story runs parallel to Moonee's, despite the latter being the main character. Halley is fired from her job as an exotic dancer and loses her TANF benefits because of it. In turn, she seeks out other means of making money like selling perfume and panhandling to hotel guests. Ron Howard's movie Hillbilly Elegy briefly explores motherhood and poverty, but not like The Florida Project. Halley's story is reminiscent of many other women in her situation. With her options slim and public assistance difficult to navigate, she's forced to find less than ideal ways to support her family. In turn, the system punishes her by taking her child away in The Florida Project's tragic ending.
The ending of The Florida Project is up for debate among viewers. Director Sean Baker purposely left the final scene open-ended so that the film can be interpreted by its watchers. While some are agitated by the choice when one considers the alternatives it's really the only way The Florida Project could end without causing severe heartbreak. So, whether audiences choose to believe The Florida Project ends with Moonee in the back of a cop car on her way to foster care or running down Disney World’s Main Street with her best friend is up to them.
