The Big Picture

Suncoast features excellent performances by Nico Parker, Laura Linney, and Woody Harrelson. The emotionally effective climax of the film leaves a lasting impact. The film is riddled with clichés, unconvincing friend characters, and an avoidance of deeper, more complex topics.

Coming-of-age stories are inherently rich with angst and conflict. After all, between navigating the confusing politics of high school, trying to figure out your identity while still living under your parents’ roof, and dealing with all those hormones, being a teenager can suck. Films that add an extra layer of trauma — the school shooting in Megan Park’s phenomenal The Fallout, for instance, or the PTSD in The Perks of Being a Wallflower — can amp up the stakes even more. Suncoast certainly falls under this umbrella.

Suncoast From debut feature film writer/director Laura Chinn, a semi-auto-biographical coming of age story about a young woman dealing with her brother’s serious illness. Release Date February 9, 2024 Director Laura Chinn Runtime 109 minutes

What Is ‘Suncoast’ About?

Suncoast follows a teen girl named Doris (Nico Parker), who has spent the majority of her life taking care of her brother, Max (Cree Kawa), who has brain cancer. Not only has this caused her to miss out on having a normal childhood and lack socialization skills with her peers, but it’s also created a wedge between her and her mother, Kristine (Laura Linney). Kristine spends all of her time working or doting on Max, simultaneously neglecting and putting an unfair amount of pressure on Doris in the process.

When Max moves into a hospice called Suncoast, Kristine begins spending more of her time with him there, leaving Doris to her own devices. Doris takes advantage of this newfound freedom, making friends by inviting them over to her empty house to party. She also forms a bond with a man named Paul (Woody Harrelson), a grieving religious widower who recently lost his wife. Doris blossoms through these relationships, opening up and doing things for herself for a change. But the tension with her mother and the impending sense of grief with Max threaten to derail her newfound happiness.

‘Suncoast’ Shines Brightest When Nico Park and Laura Linney Share the Screen
Image via Searchlight Pictures
 

Kristine is, to be blunt, not a likable character at all. That’s not inherently a problem — her son is dying, for god’s sake; her less-than-stellar way of handling things is more than understandable at times. It can even be fun to watch her go off on the hospice nurses for smiling or threaten the building’s security guards. But the way she treats Doris feels overly harsh considering the film’s genre and tone — disproportionately cruel in a way you can’t come back from. She constantly yells about how selfish Doris is, negating her feelings and manipulating her when Doris does something she doesn’t like — sometimes even using Max as a pawn in her lies. Some moments are clearly ironic, like the obvious favoritism Kristine shows when saying she’s going to sleep at the hospice with Max in case he gets scared. When Doris meekly mentions she’ll get scared home alone without her, Kristine dismisses her, essentially telling her to get over herself. It’s meant to be at least partially comedic, but it ends up feeling more sad and serious.

The choice to cut away from Doris to occasionally show Kristine’s own struggle with grief does help flesh her out a bit beyond her constantly biting people’s heads off, but neither these moments nor the impossible cards she’s been dealt ever feel like enough to justify her behavior. While Kristine does apologize for some of her actions, it comes off as too little too late. She’s let off the hook way too easily, with Doris forgiving her and falling into her arms without Kristine being held accountable for the harm she’s caused. I had trouble rooting for Doris to forgive her after she treated her so horribly every moment up to that point. Doris is far from perfect, too, but unlike Kristine, she’s still a child, which adds an uncomfortable layer to Kristine’s borderline bullying. It’s a tricky line to toe, as the film wants us to have grace and compassion for Kristine while also being critical of her actions. Unfortunately, it comes down on the wrong side of it too often. Being flawed is one thing — and an encouraged thing, as people are messy and imperfect — but Kristine’s antagonism toward Doris veers into emotionally abusive territory, which doesn’t work when you have Harrelson’s character constantly telling Doris that she’s a good mom and that Doris needs to take it easy on her. It feels a bit like gaslighting to Doris and the audience alike.

Still, there’s no denying that Linney and Park have skills — and pretty incredible chemistry. Their performances bring out the small moments of nuance, like when they go from fighting to bantering and bonding over celebrity gossip in a split-second. Their biggest moments are also played with pitch-perfect precision. Their climactic fight is electric, and it’s satisfying — even cathartic — to finally see Doris snap and Kristine’s emotions pour out of her. Even though the flip of Kristine comforting Doris doesn’t feel completely earned, it does leave you completely wrecked. You will sob, guaranteed, and that’s a powerful testament to their acting.

The Politics of ‘Suncoast’ Are Intriguing but Underdeveloped
Image via Sundance Institute

Unfortunately, Doris’ relationships with her new friend group and crush aren’t nearly as compelling. For one, nearly all of their interactions feel cliche, as if writer-director Laura Chinn is working off a teen movie checklist. They have several house parties. They get fake IDs. One of the friends gets jealous that a guy likes Doris. The list goes on. And worse yet, these scenes feel like they’re just going through the motions of what they think Doris is supposed to experience to have character development rather than actually showing us how she is being affected. Her storyline with her crush is paper-thin, and her counseling her friend on her relationship drama feels entirely inconsequential. The romance plots feel particularly forced and pointless here.

There’s potential, but no tropes are ever subverted in any interesting ways, and complex topics aren’t engaged with on any meaningful level despite being introduced. The subject of class, for instance, is an underlying theme. Doris’ mother has to work hard at a low-paying job to provide, which is something her new friends clearly don’t understand, evident in the way they note how small her house is or tell her to just buy a new school sweatshirt when she loses hers. Instead of having any real discussion about this, the storyline is sanitized, simplified, and practically ignored. Microaggressions are minimized, too, like when her friends both compliment and critique her curly hair (this also comes up when her mother makes her sit in the bed of their pickup truck). Toward the end of the movie, Doris tells her friends that they saved her life — something I don’t completely believe after seeing their largely surface-level interactions.

The same can be said for the debate about voluntary euthanasia that permeates the film with the Terri Schiavo plotline. It’s a complex issue — one the film does do a good job not presenting as something black-and-white — but it can often feel like a contrived plot device at best and background noise at worst. The choice to have Doris go to a Catholic school is a fascinating one considering the church’s firm stance on the issue, but it’s never really grappled with on a larger level besides Doris sharing a few vague platitudes about how you can’t know what’s ethical until you’re actually in the situation — an odd choice since the setup feels ripe for it.

Woody Harrelson’s Role Feels Familiar in ‘Suncoast’
Image via Searchlight Pictures
 

Instead, this plotline brings her to Harrelson’s character, who might as well be reprising his role from The Edge of Seventeen. (That’s not a complaint, by the way — he’s excellent in this kind of untraditional, straight-talking mentor role.) It’s fun to watch the two have lighthearted but meaningful philosophical and moral debates over milkshakes and driving lessons, and his advice to Doris is genuinely moving. But this dynamic — as well as the small moment Doris shares with her friend’s mom while they’re all getting ready for prom — feels like another missed opportunity. How compelling it could have been to have Doris actively look for parental figures in places outside of her mother and have that be an eye-opening experience for Kristine. Again, it seems like the movie is hinting at this but is too afraid to commit and go all-in on the concept.

Suncoast has a compelling premise, but it’s too riddled with tired clichés to ever be truly engaging. There are interesting relationships at its core, but the sometimes strange characterization and unwillingness to go against tropes dampen their impact. The actors are all top-notch, turning in phenomenal performances — it’s just too bad the script and direction don’t give them stronger material to work with. Suncoast is ultimately a distinct, personal story missing a distinct, personal voice and vision.

Suncoast Though Suncoast features wonderful performances, its clichés dim its impact ProsThe film boasts excellent performances by Nico Parker, Laura Linney, and Woody Harrelson It has an emotionally effective climax ConsThere are too many predictable cliches. Too much time is spent on unconvincing friend characters. The film is afraid to fully dive into more complex topics.

Suncoast had its World Premiere at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival. It will be available to stream on Hulu in the U.S. starting February 9.

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