It's a precarious situation that, you'd think, would make a name like 'The Magic Castle' read as bitter irony. The inhabitants of the motel are one wobbly rung above homelessness, many of them families whose children hang out together, a transient playgroup made up of members that come and go with little warning.
And travelers, like the dismayed honeymooners who arrive to see the lodgings they booked online aren't remotely what they expected, do occasionally wash up in its lobby.īut most of the guests of The Magic Castle aren't visitors, they're residents, crowding into rooms they rent by the week because getting together the chunk of change needed to even begin thinking about an apartment isn't tenable. Like the other businesses along its commercial strip in Kissimmee, Florida, it's a clear attempt to catch tourist runoff from the nearby theme park. The Florida Project takes place a few miles and a whole universe away from Disney World, in a lavender-painted motel called The Magic Castle.