Suncoast

4 outta 5

Suncoast is a coming-of-age film that is very heartfelt and has solid moments from dependable actors. However, it doesn’t add anything particularly new to the genre. Someone on the brink of demise making characters realize inner truths was done better in recent coming-of-age films like Me, Earl and the Dying Girl or The Fault in Our Stars. But just because some things have been done before doesn’t mean it isn’t a solid plot. Also, this movie has a unique time and place set in Florida circa 2005 and the movie certainly pulls off elements from that year. The cell phones are accurately blocky, so it has that going for it.

In the early 2000s, Doris (Nico Parker) is a teenager living with her mom, Kristine (Laura Linney), and her brother, Max. This is difficult as Max is in a vegetative state and Doris and her mom transfer him to Suncoast hospice for end-of-life care. Complicating matters, a patient at the hospice is Terri Schiavo, a dying woman who has become a national lightning rod for the right to life crusade with protestors gathering everyday, clamoring to keep Terri alive, which makes coming and going from the building a hassle. Kristine decides to move in with her son, sleeping on a cot by his side. Doris strikes up an unlikely friendship with a protestor, Paul (Woody Harrelson), mostly to complain about her mother. With her mom constantly away, Doris ends up inviting classmates over for a party, which becomes a regular occurrence. Now with Doris making friends she feels closer to kids her own age, but with her brother’s condition terminal, things might come crashing down.

The movie is mostly dramatic but there are some good one-liners and funny bits. Like the lock on the mother’s truck is constantly falling down and there’s a long one take shot of the mother trying to fix it and it keeps flopping open, so Doris has to ride in the back to hold onto her brother’s wheelchair. By the end when it flops down the mother and daughter drive off and let it stay open, it shows they can move on with their lives. Doris is a shy kid and Parker conveys that, like when Doris overhears the kids in her school are looking for a place to party and she offers her house, and the kids ask who she is. At least in the movie the kids become actual friends with her, in a lesser, more trite versions of coming-of-age stories the kids turn out to be nasty but it’s nice to see the isolated kid make friends. Her buddies get a few good quips here and there, but they are not the focus of the narrative. There is a subplot about one of the girls in a relationship with an older boy that feels like filler. Or probably because the dynamic that Doris has with the two adults is much more compelling.

Harrelson puts some extra feeling as a protestor who gives some life advice to Doris. Also, Harrelson has some funny reactions, like when Doris is telling him pretty much every family member has died and he begs her to tell a story that doesn’t end in tragedy. While he’s hanging out at the hospice home, she asks him for smokes something he refuses but he does bring her to a bar to watch the Superbowl. And he even takes her out for driving lessons, something her mother never has time to do. As happens in these movies, Doris is a terrible driver and Paul reacts mock-scared about it. It is not an original scene to find in a coming-of-age film, but Harrelson makes it engaging.

The most interesting thing about the time the movie is set in is having it take place during a real-life event of the case for Terri Schiavo. Even though Paul is clearly on the wrong side of the debate saying that Schiavo must be kept alive, he is still likable and by the end there is a small moment when it seems like he has changed his mind. Due to the threats against at the hospice home, there is mandatory security checks and Kristine has some good freak-outs, like when they won’t let her visit her son due to Schiavo having the feeding tube removed and she says, aghast, “What do they think I’m smuggle Schiavo a sandwich?” She is clearly going through some intense emotions about her son, leading her to forget about her daughter. She eventually forces her daughter to sleep over at the hospice home, but when Doris takes off for a night with her friends, the mother calls her phone and leaves a message that Max is dying. Doris rushes back but it turns out it was a lie with the mother saying he could die at any moment, and Doris calls her mom psychotic. It is a truly nasty thing to do which makes the mother less sympathetic. Later, when Doris goes off to her high school prom, the mother calls once again saying it could be for real this time, putting Doris in a conundrum.

Suncoast is a dramatic and charmingly breezy coming-of-age film. Having pros like Harrelson and Linney adds a lot and Parker’s performance is solid. There are better movies in this genre, but this is compelling.