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Florida's shifting sands
John Sayles' film Sunshine State depicts the serpent of development in an Eden named Florida, whose fatal beauty often attracts its own destruction.
By STEVE PERSALL, Times Film Critic
© St. Petersburg Times
published August 1, 2002
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[Photo: Sony Pictures Classics]
Edie Falco plays a motel owner ready to make a deal in Sunshine State. Marc Blucas also stars.
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John Sayles visited Florida and brought back something better than a lousy T-shirt. His latest film -- produced sly and on the fly, as usual -- is Sunshine State, a remarkably textured examination of who our state's residents were, are and will be.
Sunshine State is as diverse, yet inexorably interconnected, as Florida's population. At first glance, very few of Sayles' two dozen characters have anything in common. Different races, social classes and agendas mostly prevent their paths from crossing. Some are entrenched, and others are just passing through. They never realize how many hopes they share -- hopes that Florida in some fashion either dashed, delivered upon or still dangles like a carrot on a stick.
Sayles spins tales about fictional, parallel communities on the east coast: Delrona Beach (filmed at Amelia Island) and Lincoln Beach (filmed at American Beach). Both are targeted for the next wave of progress, with land developers plotting their pitches like military invasions. Meanwhile, a fat cat (Alan King) who may be behind both deals plays God on a golf course, waxing poetic about how he has just finished what Spanish conquistadors started.
Delrona Beach's prime property is under the Sea-Vue Motel, a mom-and-pop place handed down to an increasingly reluctant daughter, Marly Temple (Edie Falco). She used to be a Weeki Wachee mermaid and has been drowning in tequila and bad relationships ever since. Selling the Sea-Vue and moving somewhere, anywhere, else, sounds better each day. Her parents (Ralph Waite, Jane Alexander) aren't as keen about swapping family tradition for progress.
The situation at Lincoln Beach is more sensitive. The community was once the only place in which African-Americans could gather for beach parties, a history defended at town meetings by a scholarly elder (Bill Cobbs). Convincing another lifelong resident, Eunice Stokes (Mary Alice), to sell her home would give land developers a foothold on culturally sacred ground.
At the same time, Eunice's daughter Desiree Perry (Angela Bassett) returns to the home she shamed with a teenage pregnancy. Desiree is a TV-commercial actor now, recently married to an anesthesiologist (James McDaniel), and her mother wasn't invited. Lincoln Beach means little to Desiree anymore. She is more concerned with silently troubled cousin Terrell (Bernard Alexander Lewis), who has taken her place at Eunice's side.
Listing the core characters and their setups doesn't begin to reveal the emotional, satirical depth of Sunshine State. Sayles has one of the best ears for dialogue in the business, dropping lines so trenchant that you want to memorize them for future use. There is no more concise description of New Florida than "nature on a leash." Yet, Sayles is also patient enough to permit Cobbs' and Waite's soliloquies on Florida-style race relations, and Marly's margarita confessions to a friendly land developer (Timothy Hutton).
Sunshine State also has a playful side, casting an amused eye upon the odd jobs and odder personalities emerging from such flux. Mary Steenburgen is hilariously high strung as a social butterfly barely holding together Delrona Beach's cheesy Buccaneer Days celebration. Marly's ex-husband, Steve (Richard Edson), is a wonderful piece of trailer trash, a washed-up rocker posing for tourists as a Spanish fort sentry. Sayles winks but never gets too wacky, as do most filmmakers depicting Florida's eccentricities.
The only weak performance comes from Lewis, a newcomer, although he isn't required to do much except look sullen. Falco is a revelation after her success on HBO's The Sopranos, and Bassett makes the most of the smartest role she has had in years. Marly's and Desiree's varying levels of strength and resignation form the foundation of a far-flung story that would evaporate without two such focused actors.
It's possible Sunshine State will mean less to moviegoers who don't know Florida well. I'm 45 years old, I've lived in Florida for 37 of those years, and I recognized every frame of Sunshine State as a true artist's astute interpretation of what happened around me before I noticed. This may or may not be the best movie of the year, but it's all ours.
Sunshine State
- Grade: A
- Director: John Sayles
- Cast: Edie Falco, Angela Bassett, James McDaniel, Bill Cobbs, Ralph Waite, Jane Alexander, Timothy Hutton, Mary Steenburgen, Mary Alice, Alan King, Tom Wright, Gordon Clapp
- Screenplay: John Sayles
- Rating: PG-13; profanity, mature themes
- Running time: 141 min.
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