Emotional 'The Florida Project' feels likes a doc of forgotten America

There are moments during director Sean Baker's The Florida Project that feel like being stuck in a car with a bunch of unruly kids. But once you get used to this film's meandering style -- almost entirely from a child's perspective -- you will start to see the world as the playful little heroes of the story do -- and the effect is invigorating.

Not unlike Baker's previous film -- Tangerine, which was a day in the life of two vivacious trans women -- The Florida Project takes a sensitive and thoughtful look at people living on the margins of American life.

Baker never condescends to his characters or allows them to lapse into caricature -- with the exception of some very amusing shots of wonderfully tacky Florida locales, the movie doesn't have a single set-up joke in it. In fact, it all unfolds almost like a documentary, with veteran character actor Willem Dafoe being the only recognizable face on screen.

As Bobby, the beleaguered manager of a run-down motel, Dafoe has never been this warm and winning on-screen before. He's always been a consummate character, but his stock and trade has been eccentric, larger than life characterizations (he's literally played Jesus and in Wild at Heart, something close to the devil). Here he is sweet, believable and intensely lovable. It'd be a crime if he isn't in the mix for a Supporting Actor Academy Award.

But the real star of the movie is 6-year-old Brooklynn Kimberly Prince, a newcomer who displays incredible range of emotions and nuance as the the ringleader of a bunch of mischievous kids who have turned Bobby's motel into their own version of paradise.

The Prince's character's mother -- a young, single woman, who in a lesser film would be reduced to crude stereotypes -- is also a remarkably realized figure. You may not condone her life choices, and yet you also feel compassion for her hardscrabble life, and she will make you better appreciate your own.

This character is also played by an excellent, relative novice -- Bria Vinaite, and it's a testament to the power of Baker's filmmaking that non-actors and Dafoe co-mingle so intimately and effortlessly that nothing feels at all forced or staged.

The work with the child actors in especially remarkable. Their line readings, dialogue and body language are all so natural that it's incomprehensible to me how Baker captured them. It's almost if he let the kids guide the film and he just let the camera roll.

Tangerine did have similar ramshackle slice-of-life aesthetic --so perhaps Baker is onto crafting his own signature style -- a bit of Robert Altman meets cinema verite.

By the time the film reaches its complex it has become slyly emotionally overwhelming  and it culminates with an ending that I'm not sure I am entirely happy with, but whose ambition I appreciated. I'm curious to see if it connects with audiences on a commercial level.

It's an incredibly special little film, one that has resonated with me deeply. It's one of the best films of an already strong year, with a rhythm and voice that is uniquely its own.