Tragic yet optimistic, The Florida Project is a magical realist perspective on Florida culture outside the distant castle walls of the American Disney empire; a radiant but disintegrating swamp of floral-painted hotels as landing pads for pollinating insects. Is there a better independent director in U.S. cinema today than Sean Baker? I don't believe so.

Yes, war is violence and fury, and Ayer captures that well, but for deeper meditative contemplation on similar tanker themes check out Kevin Reynolds' massively underrated masterpiece The Beast.

"Just because you are a character, doesn't mean that you have character."