'Suncoast' review: Compelling drama with strong performances, understated approach

WHAT IT'S ABOUT In “Suncoast,” Doris (Nico Parker) tries to live a normal high school life while she and her mother Kristine (Laura Linney) cope with the imminent death of her brother Max (Cree Kawa).

Max has brain cancer and as the movie opens, his mom and sister move him into a Pinellas Park, Florida, hospice facility.

With this tragedy looming over her everyday existence, Doris befriends the popular kids at school when she lets them use her house for parties while mom's preoccupied. She also strikes up a friendship with the eccentric Paul (Woody Harrelson), a widower she meets at the hospice.

The semi-autobiographical movie from writer-director Laura Chinn, set in 2005, frames its story against the backdrop of the Terri Schiavo case, as Schiavo lives in the same facility as Max. For those who don't recall: the legal dispute between Schiavo's husband and her parents over whether Schiavo, who had lived in a persistent vegetative state for years, would be kept alive drew major national attention and political intervention.

MY SAY This is a coming-of-age movie with a dose of politics heaped upon it. That's an unnatural fit in many respects and one that could take a really unfortunate turn were it handled less delicately.

The Schiavo story ended in 2005 when she died, but it remains a flashpoint today given the major ethical questions it evokes and the ways in which they still propel debate. Fortunately, Chinn recognizes that her movie can't provide answers and shouldn't even try to get there.

“Suncoast” is based on her own experience with her own late brother at the same hospice as Schiavo. It's understated when it could have been melodramatic, allowing for the actors to deliver fully lived-in performances, without convolutions to distract from the essence of the story.

Parker takes Doris in an unexpected direction; this is not a moody teenager lashing out at her overbearing mother, but a quiet and inquisitive person trying to find her place as the walls cave in around her. 

Linney makes Kristine into a figure who is both sympathetic and flawed. She's angry at the world, often takes it out on her daughter, but never seems anything less than completely human. While Doris internalizes her sadness, it pours out of Kristine with ferocity.

There are some elements that skew toward clichéd coming-of-age territory. Harrelson's Paul, at the hospice to protest in favor of keeping Schiavo alive, is exactly the sort of person that movies like this tend to invent, with little ultimate purpose beyond offering another form of parental influence for the main character.

But the heart of the movie is strong, constructed around a core truth about what it feels like to structure your life around this sort of way station between life and death. These characters are stricken with grief and loneliness, beset with guilt, but also faced with the knowledge that their lives must go on even as they've been irrevocably changed.

BOTTOM LINE It's a compelling drama that relies on strong performances and an understated approach.