There are certain key events that people from a particular generation will remember. One of them for Americans who were alive in the early 2000s is the case of Terri Schiavo, who was in a vegetative state and whose husband’s request to remove her feeding tube attracted national controversy and attention. Her story played a supporting role in the real-life experience of filmmaker Laura Chinn, whose dying brother’s residence at the same hospice serves as the catalyst for her affecting new film Suncoast.
Doris (Nico Parker) is seventeen and living in Clearwater, Florida, where she attends a Christian high school. Her mother Kristine (Laura Linney) works tirelessly to make money to support Doris’ brother Max, who has brain cancer and is mostly non-responsive. When Kristine decides she needs to sleep by her son’s bedside when he moves into hospice, Doris realizes she can finally make some friends and starts hosting parties. As she experiences newfound social interactions with her peers, she also strikes up an unexpected friendship with Paul (Woody Harrelson), a religious activist who has come to protest for Schiavo to be kept alive.
The backdrop of Schiavo’s presence – and the prominence of her case – hangs over this film, adding new hurdles for Kristine whenever she comes to visit and has to argue about having her vehicle searched due to bomb threats at the facility. Doris’ new friends also assume that she must know Schiavo and is therefore some sort of celebrity, when in reality all visits to the hospice are lonely and generally miserable, especially since she knows that her brother isn’t going to get better. When Paul says he’ll pray for Max’s recovery, Doris asks him not to since she imagines that, if he were to miraculously wake up, he wouldn’t be at all happy or comfortable in his current state.
Chinn makes an assured feature film debut after considerable experience in television writing. Her script is full of witty dialogue and banter, particularly between Doris and Kristine, who are perpetually getting on each other’s nerves. Kristine comes in hot to every situation, acting like she’s been set off by something beforehand in each case, while Doris just wants to think of herself as normal. She finds her voice when she speaks to Paul, who teases her for always finding negative things to say or dead loved ones to bring up, and she throws it back at him by poking holes in his religious fervor.
Suncoast feels like several movies wrapped into one, since each storyline barely intersects, save for the presence of Doris in all of them. Kristine and Paul meet only briefly, and she’s typically just with each of them one-on-one. At school, Doris first offers up a party house after three students sitting next to her loudly complain about needing one, and their first response is to ask who she is. While Doris certainly wishes sometimes that she were invisible, she would also like to be noticed by those who don’t even bother to look at her. Her new friends are prone to typical teenage antics, and while they sometimes chastise each other for acknowledging the obvious wealth disparity separating Doris from her classmates, they’re generally clueless and predictably immature.
Parker, a breakout from The Last of Us, superbly carries this film, playing up Doris’ social awkwardness and then truly driving it home when she finally finds the energy and courage to speak up for herself. She’s a deserving winner of a special Sundance jury award for breakthrough performance. Both Linney and Harrelson are well-cast, perfectly tapped for roles that suit them and allow them to have fun. The subject matter here is serious but there’s still ample opportunity for laughter, making it an accessible, enjoyable, and heartfelt experience. Like life, it’s not always a straight or expected course, but rather a journey with a variety of ups and downs along the way.
Grade: B+
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Suncoast makes its world premiere in the U.S. Dramatic Competition at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival and will debut on Hulu on February 9th.