Brooklynn Prince

Moonee has no particular interest in our approval. In The Florida Project (2017), Brooklynn Prince gives her an appetite for mischief that Sean Baker is prepared to let become aggravating. That matters in a motel drama which could easily have made its child a small model of innocence. We want to follow her without needing her behaviour tidied up for our benefit.

With Christopher Rivera as Scooty and Valeria Cotto as Jancey, she makes their time together feel unplanned. Prince can improvise lines and sustain long takes while staying in character, but there is no sense of a performance being put on display. Baker allows the children to occupy themselves without making them seem considerate of the adults dealing with the consequences. A few episodes repeat what we already know, which is a weakness of the film rather than of Prince.

Later work includes horror with The Turning (2020) and a television lead as Hilde Lisko in Home Before Dark (2020–2021). Those parts give her work beyond Moonee, without displacing Baker’s film as our reason to recommend her. What we value in her acting is the sense that a child has something to get on with, however ill-advised. The difficulty comes when a script relies on that liveliness without giving her enough to do.

Cocaine Bear (2023) provides the less satisfying example. In Elizabeth Banks’s film, Prince plays Dee Dee, one of two children who skip school to paint a waterfall, alongside Christian Convery. We were nervous watching the pair decide what to do with a brick of something white, because they seem quite capable of experimenting with it. Both are better than the material, but neither can repair a film that spends too much time waiting for the next attack. Start with The Florida Project; save Cocaine Bear for an evening when the title is enough.