You know why this is my favorite tree?
Why?
‘Cause it’s tipped over, and it’s still growing.
Empathy. That is why this movie was made. Empathy was it’s motivation and it’s result. To empathize with someone and their situation is to come along side them as they are and where they are to live there with them. That is what Sean Baker does for us in this film. It’s quite beautiful for a film that takes place among physical and societal ruins. The colorful cheap motel is like the happiness Halley often dresses herself up with for the sake of her daughter, Moonee. Bria Vinaite as Halley and Brooklynn Prince as Moonee are simply fantastic. And Willem Dafoe as the owner of the motel they live in, Bobby, is at his best, both as a really good and empathetic character and just as an actor.
This film really sucked me in. It was perhaps not until after the movie ended that I realized that it was all really from Moonee’s perspective as a little girl. It felt like a sort of odd, gritty adventure of a child. You really live with Moonee and her mom and their friends and Bobby, so much so that you really see how trapped they are by their situation and how they are really just trying to survive and make the best of their lives. And that’s why the quote at the beginning from Moonee talking to her friend is so fitting for this movie.
The ending is both inevitable and devastating. I cried with Moonee. I cried big, hot man tears. I cried for her broken, confused heart. I cried for the desperation of her mom, Halley, that did her best to give Moonee a happy summer. I cried for Bobby as he has to watch with his hands tied. I cried as Moonee runs off with her friend in a dream-like ending sequence through Disney World. The Magic Kingdom basically lives in Moonee’s backyard as a sort of obvious juxtaposition of frivolousness and real need.
This is a truly fantastic film. It doesn’t give us answers. It doesn’t really even give us any hope, at least not in the traditional sense. It does allow us the rare opportunity to live alongside someone in a different circumstance than us, to truly empathize with this family and their community. And that’s something we don’t do nearly enough of. Perhaps that’s where the sliver of hope is still pushing through in this movie. The hope that if we can just empathize with one another. To live with and listen and see each other. Maybe then we could start to do something truly right and hopeful for one another.
