Doris, 17, and her mother have been caregivers to the eldest child in the family for years. While her brother enters a hospice to spend his last days, the teenager allows herself to live her first experiences, while her mother struggles to accept inevitable grief.
Adolescence is not easy. Even less when it is largely devoted to the care of a family member.
This is the reality of Doris (amazing Nico Parker) who, with her mother Kristine (very accurate Laura Linney), watches over her brother Max, suffering from brain cancer which has paralyzed him and made him blind. The “semi-autobiographical” story of screenwriter and director Laura Chinn is told with eloquence and sensitivity, but fails to find the balance between the different themes addressed.
The mother-daughter relationship recounted in Suncoast is what distinguishes the first achievement of the American, seen in various series like Childrens Hospital And Grandfathered, and who wrote a few episodes. Although Doris takes care of her brother in an exemplary manner, her mother always asks for more and does not seem grateful. We tend to side with the young woman, but the more the story progresses, the more we feel the mother’s sadness and exhaustion, and the more we sympathize.
As soon as Max is admitted to a palliative care center, Doris feels freed from a weight, while Kristine attempts a final rapprochement with her son who has not spoken for years. When she decides to spend the nights in a camp bed by his side, Doris takes the opportunity to invite her classmates, who have no idea who she is, to party at her house. It’s hard to believe that she is so invisible to the other students, but the friendships she develops are credible and free of the excess drama that we often find in teen films.
The other friendship that is forged in Suncoast is more curious. It turns out that the hospice where Max is is the same one where Terri Schiavo is found. In a vegetative state following a cardiac arrest in 1990, this woman was at the heart of a national debate regarding medical relentlessness from 1998 to 2005. The events of the film take place at the end of this series, while many demonstrators surround the health center day and night. Among them, Paul (Woody Harrelson, true to form). A widower, he reminds Doris that all lives are precious after buying her a milkshake. His speech is moralistic, but we believe in this man who has made it his mission to spread good. Some of the scenes with the two are slightly flat, however.
Despite the heaviness of certain elements, Suncoast is a luminous film, elevated by the brilliant performances of Nico Parker – daughter of actress Thandiwe Newton and filmmaker Ol Parker – and Laura Linney. Like the mother, the script tries to do too much, but, like her, it manages to charm us with its sincerity.
On Disney+
Drama
Suncoast
Laura Chinn
Nico Parker, Laura Linney, Woody Harrelson
1:49 a.m.
On Disney+