Flophouse America

You never really know if it’s day or night in Flophouse America. Here we meet 12-year-old Mikal, a bright boy in a difficult situation. He lives with his mom and dad in a cheap hotel – a “flophouse” – which, in a time of radical inequality, is both a home and a state of being for vulnerable people on the margins of American society. His parents drink, and although they love their son, they live in a chaos of addiction and desperate poverty. A heartbreaking tragedy becomes a final turning point for Mikal and his father. Revealing without gawking for even the briefest of moments, Flophouse America never feels like poverty porn. By granting her subjects a significant amount of autonomy, director Monica Strømdahl crafts a truly moving work that is compelling, unflinching, and above all, profoundly humane.