“Suncoast” is a private and largely quiet film, however it has the power of an actual expression, of one thing that any individual simply wanted to say.
Written and directed by Laura Chinn, the movie is basically fictional, however it’s grounded within the central occasion of the filmmaker’s teenage years — the loss of life of her older brother from mind most cancers.
However, wait! The place are you going? Come again. This isn’t one other morbid film about any individual getting sick. On the level the place we meet the brother, his loss of life is a foregone conclusion. He can’t converse or suppose; his thoughts is gone, and he’s been put into hospice. The brother is performed by Cree Kawa, and I actually would love his job: He doesn’t have a single line of dialogue. He simply lies in mattress and sleeps his method to a paycheck.
The film is concentrated on his sister Doris (Nico Parker), who has been caring for him for years and now’s starting to unfold her wings. She’s in no way blissful that her brother is dying, however the loss of life has been anticipated for a really very long time, and he or she hasn’t had an opportunity to turn out to be a traditional teenager. That is the unstated stress between Doris and her mom, performed by Laura Linney at her intense greatest.
For Doris, the brother’s imminent loss of life can be a tragic episode, however for Mother, this would be the defining catastrophe of her whole life. Whether or not or not Mother understands it, that is the supply of her anger towards Doris. She resents something Doris does that signifies she may need a life occurring outdoors this household tragedy.
In the meantime, the nation’s media is centered across the Suncoast Hospice the place the brother is staying. The 12 months is 2001, and Terri Schiavo can be a resident. For these too younger to recollect the case, Schiavo had been brain-dead for years, following a cardiac arrest, and her husband was combating for the appropriate to take away her feeding tube. The problem attracted protesters from spiritual organizations, who picketed the hospital and insisted that Schiavo was being murdered.
The Schiavo case doesn’t have a lot to do with the film’s central story, besides within the loosest sense, however it provides a contact of real-life strangeness {that a} household ought to be going via one thing so non-public and devastating whereas a media circus performs out 100 toes away. Woody Harrelson performs one of many protesters, a latest widower who appears to have conflated Schiavo together with his personal tragedy. However he’s mainly a pleasant man, and he and Doris develop an odd friendship.
About half the film issues Doris’ social life, as she begins to fall in with the cool children in class. In one other contact that feels realer than what you get in most films, the cool children are all proper. They’re recognizable as youngsters, enjoyable to be round, and so they’re not imply.
Parker (daughter of Thandiwe Newton and one of many stars of Disney’s live-action “Dumbo”) is so good as Doris that, till it’s over, it won’t happen to you that she’s performing. However Linney, no shock, is the performing standout. What she performs right here isn’t a girl who’s cracking up. That may have been simpler. Somewhat, she’s taking part in somebody robust, who won’t ever break, however who’s coming as near the breaking level as she ever will in her life. Her pent-up anger comes out in her unreasonable remedy of her daughter, however discover her particularly within the film’s greatest scene, during which she rages at a policeman who’s blocking her from seeing her son.
Attain Mick LaSalle: mlasalle@sfchronicle.com
“Suncoast”: Drama. Starring Nico Parker, Laura Linney and Woody Harrelson. Directed by Laura Chinn. (R. 109 minutes.) Streaming on Hulu beginning Friday, Feb. 9.
