The Sean Baker Trifecta: Tangerine, The Florida Project and Red Rocket
I saw Sean Baker’s new film Red Rocket a couple weeks ago and was absolutely mesmerized. Prior to viewing, I listened to my favorite cinema podcast, Cinemaholics, to get the scoop. That’s when I found out that Baker directed The Florida Project (a movie I had on my list in Netflix since 2018) and Tangerine (never on my radar). And yes, as I sat on my living room floor crying at the end of The Florida Project, I did indeed ask myself why it took me so long to get to this. God, the hours I wasted binging sub-par series and vapid movies on Netflix because I wanted something “easy” at the end of a long day when I could have had this movie in my head for the last four years? The next night I watched Tangerine and fully understood why my favorite podcasters are so taken with Baker’s repertoire.
Each film has a grittiness at its core, most evident in its main characters. But from the beginning of each film, Baker deftly and immediately engages us in their lives in unexpected – and important – ways.
In The Florida Project, Moonee and her friend seem very sweetly innocent in the first scene. They are filmed against a brightly colored wall and as they start running and laughing, we assume they’re just kids exploring their freedom. But this innocence dissipates rapidly when Moonee (Brooklynn Prince) begins spitting on cars at a motel. Within minutes, we begin to form a new opinion of her, but as the scene unfolds and we realize she lives at another motel nearby, ironically named Magic Castle, we form a kind of empathy for her. This empathy just balloons, of course, as we meet Moonee’s mother, played by Bria Vinaite. She is just as foul-mouthed and tough as her daughter, makes questionable decisions throughout the film, and ultimately is the real child in the relationship. And thus begins a roller coaster of a film that explores through a child’s eyes the issue of homelessness against the backdrop of Disneyland. The juxtaposition of these two settings starkly represents the dichotomy between those who can afford expensive amusement and those who are not only hopelessly stuck in a pattern of homelessness but those who perhaps bear its burden most.
Tangerine likewise opens innocently enough with two transgender friends having a chat at Donut Time. Sin-Dee (Kitana Kiki Rodriguez), fresh out of a jail stint, catches up with her best friend, Alexandra (Mya Taylor). But the talk very quickly turns to Sin-Dee’s quest to find her pimp/boyfriend and we learn that they are both prostitutes trying to hustle their way on the streets of Hollywood. Within just a few minutes of dialogue, she manages to hook Alexandra – and thus us – into her chaotic chase to find him and his new girlfriend (an actual girl, Alexandra comically tells Sin-Dee). So, Alexandra becomes the more firmly rooted character while her best friend goes off the rails with jealousy. The action all takes place in a 24-hour period and is filled with such frenetic energy that by the last scene, we are spent. While mostly comedic, the film also contains some startingly realistic moments, one very heartbreaking rendition of “Toyland”, and a breathlessly tender ending that exposes just how vulnerable these two women are under all their talk.
Red Rocket presents a character who is contemptible in many ways. Down on his luck, Mikey (Simon Rex) has left LA by bus and returned to his hometown in Texas. A seemingly innocuous beginning takes an interesting turn when we realize that his wife Lexi (Bree Elrod) wants nothing to do with him, that he’s been away for a while, and that he may or may not have run into some trouble in LA. Nevertheless, within minutes of the opening scene, Lexi reluctantly agrees to take him back in so that he can, as he promises, get his life back together. By the time we learn that he’s a former adult film actor, we’ve also been seduced into his hustle because he’s just that good. Set against the backdrop of a small Texas town replete with smoking oil refineries and barren landscape, the film puts us squarely in a place with marginalized people, in homes that bellow television noise, including notably an ever-yelling Donald Trump. Mikey himself has a bit of a Trump personality in that he tells people what they want to hear, always looking for a way to get into their good graces for his own benefit. Like Lexi and like us, a 17-year old girl named Strawberry who works at the local Donut Hole (yes, puns abound) also gets easily seduced. Mikey is convinced that she is his ticket back to LA, that they can both be in the adult film business together. He plays games with Strawberry, his wife and her mom, his neighbor, his drug dealers and through all his talk, they all see that he is pathetic, but his charisma is absolutely inescapable. He is an anti-hero who eventually creates his own downfall, but it’s an odd joy to watch it unfold.
You just don’t see characters like this often in film – those on the margins of society whose behavior you may not condone but whose personalities somehow win us over nevertheless. And it’s worth every minute.
Tangerine and The Florida Project are both on Netflix.
