Glossy Dramedy Suncoast Flails in the Shallows
Sometimes a movie treats its real-life inspiration with such shallowness that it should’ve just stayed as a not-so-fun fact icebreaker. “My brother died down the hall from Terri Schiavo in mid-2000s Florida” is a hell of an answer to “let’s go around and say something interesting about ourselves.” It might even be an engrossing chapter in a memoir. Translated to film, its tropey teen story overwhelms its tearjerker logline. Neither high schooler Doris (Nico Parker, Thandiwe Newton’s daughter who better proved her talents in her brief few minutes in The Last of Us), nor her foul-mouthed mom Kristine (Laura Linney), nor the dying process of Max (Cree Kawa, a prop) adds anything but an uncomfortably fluctuating tone to the familiar dramedy. While there is a literal amount of truth running through the semi-autobiographical Suncoast, its glossy, uncertain cutesiness is as fake as Ron DeSantis’ height.
Throughout Suncoast’s barbed-but-loving quips and prom night disasters, the vegetative patient at its core stays symbolic—a connection point to a national media storm more about granting this anonymous teen narrative a hook than giving it something to say. Though the family weathers actual storms and the hectic hospice flurry of protestors, counter-protestors, lookie-loos and overzealous security guards, this unique perspective is sparingly employed by first-time writer/director Laura Chinn. The brunt of the film involves Doris’ bland social life, its arc confined to her juggling popularity and personal tragedy.
Since Doris is but a doormat to her domineering mother, perpetually overshadowed by her brother’s brain cancer, her push for self-actualization has deeply emotional roots. Yet, since neither Doris nor Kristine ever develop into more than coming-of-age cut-outs, we’re left to make these connections while the characters go through the motions.
Kristine’s sleeping at the hospice, sharing a room with her comatose son—a desperately sad detail barely remarked upon by the movie. Her absence gives Doris a powerful social weapon: An empty house, free from adults, for the cool kids to party at. Though Doris is deeply dweeby, her broadly played classmates take a liking to her, bringing her into the world of mansions, clubs and fake IDs. Parker is amiable enough through this, and lets it all out when it’s time for her big climactic cry, but she’s got a role as thin as Suncoast’s social commentary.
Doris goes to a private Christian school, surrounded by money and conservative politics. Abortion and Schiavo are the topics of discussion in every class (for some reason), like a Bible-based quarter-turn on high school movies whose English classes always happen to be discussing the relevant star-crossed passages of Shakespeare during their romances. Reflective of Suncoast’s high school perspective, its premise’s hot-button issue is handled with as little insight as possible. Taking no stand, it treats the non-answer Doris delivers to her class about someone’s right to die (“We don’t know how anyone feels unless we’re them,” she shrugs) like a monk’s mic drop.
This is half-heartedly countered by the pseudo-hippy Paul (Woody Harrelson) who, despite being there to support Schiavo (“Every life is precious,” he intones), inserts himself into Doris’s day from time to time. Though Paul’s got some one-line wounds of his own, he’s here to parent Doris with his sunny wisdom. He dispenses advice and driving lessons and is never once questioned as to why he keeps randomly imposing himself upon this unsupervised minor. He’s a magical little screenplay sage who shows up when needed and disappears from the movie’s logic the moment he leaves the screen. A decade ago, the character would be Black and Doris would be white. It’d be terrible and racist. Thankfully, filmmaking has come a long way; now, it’s just terrible.