With Brooklynn Prince, Valeria Cotto, Willem Dafoe, Christopher Rivera, Bria Vinaite.

With Brooklynn Prince, Valeria Cotto, Willem Dafoe, Christopher Rivera, Bria Vinaite.

Moonee is six or seven years old when we first see her spitting from a high place, landing gobs on a parked car below.  She and her friend Scooty run wild through the purple painted motel in a town near Disney World, Florida.  Their parents are not present except in the manners or lack of them they have learned.

Feral animals, I kept thinking, as they ran along sidewalks, crossed parking lots and highway medians, fearless of being hit by an errant car.  The children walk past one store after another, Disney influence all around them.   Moonie’s mother’s friend who lives downstairs from her works at the waffle house and is willing to give the kids free food if they pick it up out back.

If you live near Disney World you will be influenced by the heightened fantasy that hotel and resort radiate.  Up and down the highway are stores with huge faces of fantastic characters:  Dumbledore, Snow White, Spongebob Squarepants.  So if you are six years old you might think that Santa Claus summers around the corner.

It would be hard to accept the harsh reality you actually live in.  Moonee’s mother, a child herself, has no job or way of making an income.  They live hand to mouth:  pizza for dinner, handouts from Christian charities, ice cream  purchased with change begged from people in line to buy same.

One day a new family moves in, the one whose car Moonee’s been soiling with her spit.  The grandmother in charge takes offense and insists that Moonee clean up the mess.  Moonee decides to enlist one of the grandchildren to help, a girl called Jancee.  Jancee’s grandmother objects– it was a punishment after all, something for Moonee to learn from.  But the only one learning anything from this movie is the audience.

And here it is:  Disney World is a big fat fraud intended to make us forget or not see how miserable it can be when you’r not educated or skilled, saddled with a small child, when you yourself are a child.  Moonee’s mother comes in for close scrutiny as she struggles to pay the bills and has to resort to some risky business.

How wonderful is the storytelling, though, as we run with the children from scene to scene, in a kind of rhapsodic grace, free of any reality except the innocent point of view of six year olds.

The motel manager, Bobby, is very sympathetic.  He sees everything and empathizes with everyone, even as his business is being  run by a heartless owner.  He protects the children from suspicious strangers.  I believe that Dafoe should win some kind of prize for the dignity with which he acts this part.  

But the actress playing Moonee, Brooklynn Prince, could not be more perfect, even as she leads more innocent children astray.  Like all feral animals, her task is to survive.    The threat of the law is never far away.  When police finally do show up, they seem like just more ineffective grown ups unable to change the rotten way things are.