FilmSnobReviews

Title: Suncoast
MPA Rating: R
Director: Laura Chinn
Starring: Nico Parker, Laura Linney, Woody Harrelson
Runtime: 1 hr 49 mins

What It Is: Doris (Parker) is a young woman tasked with taking care of her terminally sick brother. When he is to be moved to hospice this is something her mother Kristine (Linney) isn’t taking too well. Doris just wants to be a teenager and that’s difficult in her current situation. She meets Paul (Harrelson) a man of the belief that all life is precious. This against the backdrop of huge protests at the hospice center because of a humongous court dispute with one, very famous, case.

What We Think: Everything here is really well done. It’s not a mold breaker and it sorta just goes along. It’ll tug at the heartstrings in all the right ways and at the right moments. Laura Linney’s Kristine is kind of insane. Like too much so. It’s a bit much. Nico Parker is excellent and Woody is good enough even if he doesn’t have the most screen time. The writing felt personal, because it was and you can see that director Laura Chinn actually went through all of this. In it’s lessons there a lot to learn about what grieving is. How we do it, how we process it and how we prepare for tragedies when they know they’re about to happen. There’s many different ways to do so. Disassociation (Doris), anger and denial (Kristine), attachment (Paul) all of which are parts of the greater feeling of grief. Each character moving through this at their own rate and in their own way. That part was BEAUTIFULLY delivered.

Our Grade: B-, Hulu has a real winner that they picked up from Sundance. Debuting just a week or so after it played the famous festival this was one to look out for and I’m happy to report it lives up to most of the praise it has received. I would tell you to certainly throw this on if you have a Hulu account, which I know a lot of us do. They’ve got a real winner on their hands here.