It will probably really feel discordant to see somebody mourning amid the pastel-hued bungalows of a beach-bound city, beneath a blue sky. Not that single mother Kristine is grieving precisely in bittersweet, comedic Sundance drama “Suncoast” — a reality Laura Linney’s character makes decidedly clear to a counselor on the hospice heart of the title. In any case, her son Max (a really nonetheless Cree Kawa), who’s dying of mind most cancers, isn’t gone but; he’s simply now not there.

Daughter Doris (Nico Parker), nevertheless, continues to be very current, and he or she’s bristling below years of Kristine’s not-grieving and Max’s unresolved state. If that sounds harsh, it actually isn’t. In her semi-autobiographical directorial debut, Laura Chinn locations her sympathies with the kid who isn’t ailing, a minimum of on the outset. Doris has been conscripted into the sort of caretaking that may tax even essentially the most skilled of adults, one which has robbed her of area for rising up.

An amiable ensemble effort, with two sturdy lead performances, “Suncoast” is paying homage to the minor-key, quirky-charming ’90s dramedies so typically found by the Sundance Movie Pageant. This can be a wonderful factor; there are deserved laughs and tears. Additionally it is a barely awkward factor. “Suncoast” feels crowded with overworked moments that ask us to wrestle with terminal sickness and the ethics of euthanasia, with right-to-die arguments and the privilege of coming of age.

The story takes place in Chinn’s hometown of Clearwater, Fla., in 2005, as one of many nation’s bitter, headline-grabbing sagas is enjoying out. Michael Schiavo has been preventing within the courts to have spouse Theresa “Terri” Schiavo’s taken off life help. Though, she’s been in a vegetive state for 15 years, her dad and mom have been contesting his efforts.

It’s an particularly unsettling time for Kristine to have moved Max from their dwelling to the hospice heart the place Schiavo resides. Outdoors Suncoast, throngs collect with indicators. The bulk are protesting the likelihood {that a} courtroom will aspect with Michael and take away Terri’s feeding tube. One of many much less vitriolic placards: “Name the FBI!!! A Crime’s Being Dedicated.”

The drone and barks of the protesters, plus the added layer of safety on the hospice, would merely make for a harsh background hum to the goings on in Max’s room have been it not for Paul. Woody Harrelson performs the seeming seashore bum who befriends Doris. He’s a widower with robust opinions about dying and love, and he shares them over the course of the film with Doris. Harrelson makes a personality that feels too concocted much less so.
By no means one to shrink back from disagreeable characters, Linney digs into Kristine’s worst conduct at her lowest second. She is hard-mouthed and fuming, the way in which one can get when there’s completely nothing to be achieved to vary the excruciating inevitable. As a result of we have been dropped into the tail finish of the household’s crucible, we now have little thought how comfortable her edges, or how good a mother she could have been. She is about on rebuffing sympathy.
In fact, Doris will get the brunt of her mother’s moods. Although the hospice’s head nurse (Eyla Monterroso Mejia) and a police officer (Jason Burkey), tasked with ensuring nobody enters the hospice with terror in thoughts, aren’t spared her condescension or ire.
Parker does nicely as Doris, the barely ugly however unsure duckling that takes a seat within the again row in school and stays mum. That’s till a possibility to attach with the cool children at her personal Catholic college presents itself. Quickly she’s internet hosting events at her modest dwelling, whereas Kristine has taken a cot at Max’s bedside.

Chinn teases us with the tropes of the highschool style. Matt Walsh portrays the uninteresting (however probably not) trainer who makes use of the Schiavo contretemps as a teachable second. And we are sometimes on edge, as is tentative Doris, about when her new associates, the well-off cool children — Laci (Daniella Taylor), Brittany (Ella Anderson), Megan (Ariel Martin) and Nate (Amarr) — will morph into the merciless children. When will they go all “Carrie” on her? No spoilers right here, however the writer-director’s therapy of those sometimes-clueless youngsters feels extra grounded than, say, “Bottoms” — which doesn’t imply “Suncoast” is best solely that Chinn’s selections are admirable and emotionally bold.

“Suncoast” premieres Feb. 4 on Hulu, which appears like the correct technique. Who desires to ugly cry in theater?