There are many films that have a vital real-life issue being discussed in the background, but we can only see it through the characters that are introduced to us. In Suncoast, the issue is quite serious: the value of human life. The film takes place in 2002, when the Terri Schiavo case was in its most heated state of affairs in the US. In the foreground is the story about Doris and her family, where her mother worries about Doris’ ill brother, who is in a coma with only some sensory faculties left. It’s a semi-autobiographical directorial feature by Laura Chinn, and she tries to mix in contemporary issues in this coming-of-age dramedy.
Spoilers Ahead
Plot Synopsis: What Happens In The Film?
The protests were ongoing in the Terri Schiavo case. She was on life support with a feeding tube, keeping her alive. Doris, however, wasn’t concerned with that at all.
Spoilers Ahead
Plot Synopsis: What Happens In The Film?
The protests were ongoing in the Terri Schiavo case. She was on life support with a feeding tube, keeping her alive. Doris, however, wasn’t concerned with that at all.
- 2/10/2024
- by Ayush Awasthi
- Film Fugitives
Plot: In 2005, a teenager, Doris (Nico Parker), helps her mother (Laura Linney) care for her dying brother at the same hospice where Terri Schiavo is being treated. With the hospital at the centre of neverending right-to-life protests, Doris sparks an unlikely friendship with one of the protestors (Woody Harrelson).
Review: Suncoast was a late Sundance surprise for me. I wasn’t expecting much from the film, and I entertained the idea of waiting for it to hit Hulu (it has a Feb 9 release date). Still, I found myself unexpectedly charmed by this Searchlight release, which is the kind of crowdpleaser the festival audience loves, with the theatre I saw this in packed with sobbing attendees by the time the credits rolled.
Suncoast was a refreshing change of pace from some of the heavier fare I’ve been watching here, with it refreshingly optimistic and upbeat, even if it deals with grim subject matter.
Review: Suncoast was a late Sundance surprise for me. I wasn’t expecting much from the film, and I entertained the idea of waiting for it to hit Hulu (it has a Feb 9 release date). Still, I found myself unexpectedly charmed by this Searchlight release, which is the kind of crowdpleaser the festival audience loves, with the theatre I saw this in packed with sobbing attendees by the time the credits rolled.
Suncoast was a refreshing change of pace from some of the heavier fare I’ve been watching here, with it refreshingly optimistic and upbeat, even if it deals with grim subject matter.
- 2/10/2024
- by Chris Bumbray
- JoBlo.com
Chicago – Patrick McDonald of HollywoodChicago.com appears on “The Morning Mess” with Scott Thompson on Wbgr-fm on February 8th, 2024, reviewing “Suncoast,” a re-exploration of the Terri Schiavo case through a fictional nearby family. Streaming on Hulu beginning February 9th.
Rating: 3.5/5.0
In Florida, teenaged Max (Cree Kawa) ends up in the Suncoast hospice center, the same facility as Terri Schiavo … whose case sparked a right-to-die debate. Max’s single mother Kristine (Laura Linney) and sister Doris (Nico Parker) cannot care for him anymore, as he is dying of terminal brain cancer. As the Schiavo case plays out right in front of them, they are mourning their own losses and opportunities, which includes Doris not having a normal teenage life. Things change when she meets a Christian activist named Paul (Woody Harrelson) and at the same time becomes popular with her party hardy classmates.
”Suncoast” is in select theaters, see local listings,...
Rating: 3.5/5.0
In Florida, teenaged Max (Cree Kawa) ends up in the Suncoast hospice center, the same facility as Terri Schiavo … whose case sparked a right-to-die debate. Max’s single mother Kristine (Laura Linney) and sister Doris (Nico Parker) cannot care for him anymore, as he is dying of terminal brain cancer. As the Schiavo case plays out right in front of them, they are mourning their own losses and opportunities, which includes Doris not having a normal teenage life. Things change when she meets a Christian activist named Paul (Woody Harrelson) and at the same time becomes popular with her party hardy classmates.
”Suncoast” is in select theaters, see local listings,...
- 2/9/2024
- by adam@hollywoodchicago.com (Adam Fendelman)
- HollywoodChicago.com
With 2024 only about six weeks old, filmgoers are getting a very interesting family comedy/drama that isn’t a “holdover” from the previous year’s limited Oscar-qualifying run. As with last weekend’s Scrambled, this is the feature film directing debut of a writer/actress, though she’s not working in front of the camera. And this is almost an autobiography, with some name changes and a few names that were real people in the news. Actually, they were in the headlines, so it’s a fictionalized story with a true event as its backdrop, similar to the Jack and Rose romance of Titanic. And it all figures into an engaging “coming of age” story that happened in the sunny, but often turbulent, vacation spot known as Suncoast.
And, as you might have guessed, that spot was down in Florida about twenty years ago. Teenager Doris (Nico Parker) is stressed...
And, as you might have guessed, that spot was down in Florida about twenty years ago. Teenager Doris (Nico Parker) is stressed...
- 2/9/2024
- by Jim Batts
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
Pro-tip: as our current leap year turns the page into February, it’s a good idea to stock up on artificial tears at the Cvs. Why? Because this is an exceptionally intense month for movie-watching. In addition to your 2024 Film Independent Spirit Awards screeners, there’s also an exciting collection of Don’t-Miss Indies hitting theaters and streamers, from combat-heavy martial arts action sagas to gentle culinary dramas. So put on some more tea, snuggle up with your kitty, puppy, snake or waifu body pillow of choice, and get to watchin’!
True Detective: Night Country
When You Can Watch: Now
Where You Can Watch: HBO, Max
Director: Issa López
Cast: Jodie Foster, Kali Reis, Fiona Shaw
Why We’re Excited: The fourth season of HBO’s anthology crime drama is the first one for which creator Nic Pizzolatto does not serve as the showrunner or writer; those responsibilities now fall to Mexican filmmaker Issa López,...
True Detective: Night Country
When You Can Watch: Now
Where You Can Watch: HBO, Max
Director: Issa López
Cast: Jodie Foster, Kali Reis, Fiona Shaw
Why We’re Excited: The fourth season of HBO’s anthology crime drama is the first one for which creator Nic Pizzolatto does not serve as the showrunner or writer; those responsibilities now fall to Mexican filmmaker Issa López,...
- 2/2/2024
- by Su Fang Tham
- Film Independent News & More
Nico Parker, Ella Anderson, Ariel Martin and Daniella Taylor in ‘Suncoast’ (Photo by Eric Zachanowich © 2023 Searchlight Pictures)
Nico Parker (The Last of Us) delivers an impressive performance as a teenager struggling with more than her fair share of family trauma in writer/director Laura Chinn’s Suncoast. The R-rated drama is a deeply personal coming-of-age story based on Chinn’s own experiences growing up with a single mother and an older brother who passed away from cancer.
There’s a pivotal scene early on in Suncoast with Doris (Parker) ticking off a list of family members who are either dead or dying. She’s not angry or frustrated, just matter-of-fact about her family history. Wise beyond her 17 years, Doris has accepted that these circumstances are beyond her control.
That’s Doris. She doesn’t rage; she accepts her situation. She’ll be her brother’s caretaker and second fiddle in...
Nico Parker (The Last of Us) delivers an impressive performance as a teenager struggling with more than her fair share of family trauma in writer/director Laura Chinn’s Suncoast. The R-rated drama is a deeply personal coming-of-age story based on Chinn’s own experiences growing up with a single mother and an older brother who passed away from cancer.
There’s a pivotal scene early on in Suncoast with Doris (Parker) ticking off a list of family members who are either dead or dying. She’s not angry or frustrated, just matter-of-fact about her family history. Wise beyond her 17 years, Doris has accepted that these circumstances are beyond her control.
That’s Doris. She doesn’t rage; she accepts her situation. She’ll be her brother’s caretaker and second fiddle in...
- 1/30/2024
- by Rebecca Murray
- Showbiz Junkies
Floridian residents of a certain age viscerally remember the name Terri Schiavo. She was a woman in a vegetative state who became the center of a national right-to-die debate when her husband petitioned against her parents to remove her feeding tube. Filmmaker Laura Chinn had a unique experience of the case, which took place in her hometown of Clearwater: her brother shared a hospice center with Schiavo in the mid-aughts as the case reached its divisive climax.
That’s the inspiration for her debut feature Suncoast, which she wrote and directed. Set at the same time and place, the film is a dramedy that wears its messy little heart on its sleeve. Beautifully shot and acted, it refuses to take sides in one of the most controversial modern debates, and is all the better for it.
Doris (Nico Parker) and her mother Kristine (Laura Linney) are struggling to get by...
That’s the inspiration for her debut feature Suncoast, which she wrote and directed. Set at the same time and place, the film is a dramedy that wears its messy little heart on its sleeve. Beautifully shot and acted, it refuses to take sides in one of the most controversial modern debates, and is all the better for it.
Doris (Nico Parker) and her mother Kristine (Laura Linney) are struggling to get by...
- 1/29/2024
- by Lena Wilson
- The Film Stage
Laura Chinn’s directorial debut, Suncoast, is based on the filmmaker’s own experience growing up in Florida in the early 2000s, when her younger brother, blind and deaf and in a wheelchair from brain cancer, was placed in the same hospice center that Terri Schiavo was at. It’s a harrowing story that Chinn detailed in her 2022 memoir titled Acne.
The contrast between the media circus and heated protests surrounding Schiavo’s case and the private suffering of a family—Kristine (Laura Linney) and her teenage daughter, Doris (Nico Parker)—who’s been saying a very long goodbye to Max (Cree Kawa) for nearly a decade, should have orchestrated a riveting tension. Instead, the Schiavo case is a barely felt presence, serving only to bring Doris, exhausted by years of helping care for her brother under the watch of her overbearing mother, into the orbit of Paul (Woody Harrelson...
The contrast between the media circus and heated protests surrounding Schiavo’s case and the private suffering of a family—Kristine (Laura Linney) and her teenage daughter, Doris (Nico Parker)—who’s been saying a very long goodbye to Max (Cree Kawa) for nearly a decade, should have orchestrated a riveting tension. Instead, the Schiavo case is a barely felt presence, serving only to bring Doris, exhausted by years of helping care for her brother under the watch of her overbearing mother, into the orbit of Paul (Woody Harrelson...
- 1/26/2024
- by Derek Smith
- Slant Magazine
There’s an ambitious story at the heart of Laura Chinn’s feature debut “Suncoast.” Based on Chinn’s own childhood experiences, the film is about a teenager named Doris (Nico Parker) with a brain cancer-riddled brother dying in the same hospice care where cultural lightning rod Terri Schiavo is also ailing. Doris just wants to experience the normal ups and downs of high school, but she has to deal with her sibling’s condition and her overbearing mother (Laura Linney). On top of that, Doris is confronted by the very questions of what death means by the protestors outside the facility calling Schiavo’s husband a murderer for wanting to end her vegetative state.
It’s a lot to capture in under two hours, and while there are some lovely beats in Chinn’s film, it’s ultimately too unfocused in the way it approaches its many themes, with...
It’s a lot to capture in under two hours, and while there are some lovely beats in Chinn’s film, it’s ultimately too unfocused in the way it approaches its many themes, with...
- 1/22/2024
- by Esther Zuckerman
- Indiewire
Laura Chinn’s feature film writing and directing debut hits close to the heart — her heart especially — in a semi-autobiographical story set in 2005 and inspired by her own growing pains at a dark time in her family’s life as her brother is dying of cancer and moved unknowingly into what turned out to be the same nursing facility, Suncoast, where Terri Schiavo was also a patient.
If you don’t know the name, Terri Schiavo, you probably weren’t seeing the news in 2005 as this was the notorious right-to-die case that actually started in 1998 in a dispute between Schiavo’s husband and parents over removing the feeding tube of the woman who was in a irreversible vegetative state. It sparked worldwide protests by many on all sides including religious zealots, non-stop news coverage, government interference and more all playing out in front of this Florida facility where Chinn’s brother,...
If you don’t know the name, Terri Schiavo, you probably weren’t seeing the news in 2005 as this was the notorious right-to-die case that actually started in 1998 in a dispute between Schiavo’s husband and parents over removing the feeding tube of the woman who was in a irreversible vegetative state. It sparked worldwide protests by many on all sides including religious zealots, non-stop news coverage, government interference and more all playing out in front of this Florida facility where Chinn’s brother,...
- 1/22/2024
- by Pete Hammond
- Deadline Film + TV
Woody Harrelson wasn’t able to make it to The Hollywood Reporter‘s chat at the Sundance Film Festival with Suncoast writer-director Laura Chinn and the actor’s co-stars Laura Linney and Ariel Martin. However, Chinn and Linney shed light on what Harrelson brought to his role.
In Suncoast, which is partially based on Chinn’s own life, Harrelson’s character Paul is an activist who protests in favor of real-life person Terri Schiavo’s right to live while being in a vegetative state. He strikes a friendship with Doris (Nico Parker), a high schooler whose comatose brother is being held in the same facility as Schiavo.
Speaking on the dynamic between the characters of Paul and Doris, Linney, who plays Doris’ mother Kristine, said, “The thing that’s also interesting is when you have conviction on opposite sides of an issue. The conviction is the same and the conviction can,...
In Suncoast, which is partially based on Chinn’s own life, Harrelson’s character Paul is an activist who protests in favor of real-life person Terri Schiavo’s right to live while being in a vegetative state. He strikes a friendship with Doris (Nico Parker), a high schooler whose comatose brother is being held in the same facility as Schiavo.
Speaking on the dynamic between the characters of Paul and Doris, Linney, who plays Doris’ mother Kristine, said, “The thing that’s also interesting is when you have conviction on opposite sides of an issue. The conviction is the same and the conviction can,...
- 1/21/2024
- by Tatiana Tenreyro
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Peter Nicks’ Anthem and Gabriel Francis Paz Goodenough’s The Body Politic are among the non-fiction highlights in this year’s DC/Dox documentary film festival in Washington, D.C. next month.
The event also will include the world premieres of Nick Capote’s Between Life & Death: Terri Schiavo’s Story, from MSNBC Films, and an episode of Dawn Porter’s Showtime series Supreme.
The full slate — read it here — includes 31 features and 21 shorts from eight countries. The event, to be held from June 15-18, also will feature the opening night event screening of Joan Baez I Am A Noise, with Baez scheduled to attend, and closing night Space Race, with astronauts Ed Dwight and Leland Melvin.
The festival launched last year after the AFI announced that it would merge AFI Docs, which had long been held in the D.C. area in June, into its annual AFI Film Festival, held in November in Los Angeles.
The event also will include the world premieres of Nick Capote’s Between Life & Death: Terri Schiavo’s Story, from MSNBC Films, and an episode of Dawn Porter’s Showtime series Supreme.
The full slate — read it here — includes 31 features and 21 shorts from eight countries. The event, to be held from June 15-18, also will feature the opening night event screening of Joan Baez I Am A Noise, with Baez scheduled to attend, and closing night Space Race, with astronauts Ed Dwight and Leland Melvin.
The festival launched last year after the AFI announced that it would merge AFI Docs, which had long been held in the D.C. area in June, into its annual AFI Film Festival, held in November in Los Angeles.
- 5/15/2023
- by Ted Johnson
- Deadline Film + TV
Laura Chinn has written for projects like "The Mick," "Children's Hospital," and "Florida Girls," which she created and starred in. She's also acted in projects like "Happy Endings," and "Warrior." If that wasn't enough, Chinn had a script selected for 2020's The Black List, a grouping of all the unproduced scripts of note from that year. That script is set to become the upcoming drama film "Suncoast," which will serve as Chinn's directorial debut, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
Production for the new film will begin in September through Searchlight Pictures, with a number of big-name actors signing on for roles, including Woody Harrelson and Laura Linney. Laura Chinn recently published her memoir entitled "Acne" through Hachette Books, which scored a review blurb from Tina Fey ("30 Rock") on the cover.
Here is everything we know so far about the film "Suncoast."
What We Think Suncoast Will Be About
The script for "Suncoast" is,...
Production for the new film will begin in September through Searchlight Pictures, with a number of big-name actors signing on for roles, including Woody Harrelson and Laura Linney. Laura Chinn recently published her memoir entitled "Acne" through Hachette Books, which scored a review blurb from Tina Fey ("30 Rock") on the cover.
Here is everything we know so far about the film "Suncoast."
What We Think Suncoast Will Be About
The script for "Suncoast" is,...
- 8/20/2022
- by Jenna Busch
- Slash Film
Two-and-a-half years after Season 1 ended, The Other Two finally returns with new episodes. And the most important thing on our minds is whether or not the gayest show on TV is able to squeeze in a Matt Damon “f-slur” joke before Season 2 premieres on HBO Max August 26th.
Alas, no, but taking on that kind of celebrity culture absurdity is one of the reasons fans fell hard for the series when it first aired on Comedy Central. Co-created by Saturday Night Live writers Chris Kelly and Sarah Schneider, the premise...
Alas, no, but taking on that kind of celebrity culture absurdity is one of the reasons fans fell hard for the series when it first aired on Comedy Central. Co-created by Saturday Night Live writers Chris Kelly and Sarah Schneider, the premise...
- 8/26/2021
- by Mark Peikert
- Rollingstone.com
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