Screens/Movies

Where: Disney+
What: Movie, 109 mins.
When: Now
Genre: Drama
Rating: NNNN (out of 5)
Why you should watch: Laura Linney is characteristically stunning as Kristine, a mother struggling to support a teenage son, Max, who suffers from terminal cancer. Meanwhile, Nico Parker is a revelation as the 17-year-old daughter, Doris, who deals with classic teenage issues while navigating her brother’s pending death and her mother’s chaotic attempts to cope. This movie’s not as depressing as it sounds, in part because of the great performance from Woody Harrelson as Paul, a kind of bedraggled hippie life coach savant who befriends Doris. Paul is actually picketing outside the hospice where Max has been taken, protesting the refusal to supply life support to Terri Schiavo, also in the hospice, a real-life case that challenged and set U.S. legal precedents in the 2000s. It’s a semi-autobiographical story based on the life of actor-turned-writer-director Laura Chinn, who cared for her own terminally ill brother at home and then a hospice. Suncoast masterfully explores challenging themes, including who deserves to live with the writer’s own history informing a complex exploration of the issues.