In Suncoast, writer-director Laura Chinn takes the personal tragedy of losing her brother to cancer and weaves it into something meaningful. The film is a sensitive meditation on death and grief, but it isn’t all grim. It’s also a coming-of-age story, one that focuses on Doris (Nico Parker), a version of Chinn’s younger self aching for normal teen experiences. The film is at its best when it zeroes in on Doris’ interiority and examines the duality of having to deal with so much death while still wanting to live a vibrant life. The surprising friendship that blooms between her and the popular kids as she chases after this life is one of the best depictions of authentic teen dynamics in recent memory. But the film is at its weakest when it tries to be something it’s not—that is, your usual tear-jerker indie fare that’s rife with lessons from a magical stranger (in this case played genially, but unnecessarily, by Woody Harrelson) and grievances from a grief-stricken mother (played powerfully by Laura Linney). To be sure, Harrelson and Linney (especially) deliver top-notch performances, but they feel shoehorned in an otherwise pitch-perfect film about a girl finding her place in the real world.
"An amiable ensemble effort, with two sturdy lead performances, “Suncoast” is reminiscent of the minor-key, quirky-charming ’90s dramedies so often discovered by the Sundance Film Festival."
— Lisa Kennedy
While caring for her brother along with her audacious mother, a teenager strikes up an unlikely friendship with an eccentric activist who is protesting one of the most landmark medical cases of all time.
Based on writer-director Laura Chinn’s life, Suncoast tells the story of a teen girl navigating high school under the shadow of her terminally ill brother and their perennially distraught mother.
The way Chinn successfully captures the way teens interact with each other and how she subverts expectations by making the “cool” kids actually cool, as in nice and empathetic and unavoidably childish, is an inspired move. It’s reminiscent of another well-made coming-of-age film, Booksmart, in that way. Despite what other films will have you believe, high school can’t be categorized so easily into cool and uncool, popular and unpopular. Suncoast gets that, and it’s refreshing to watch authentic friendship grow here.
Life would be so much easier if all the cool kids were as nice as they are in this film.
Sundance
1 win
