Product Details

• Actors: Angela Bassett, Edie Falco, Alex Lewis, Alan King, Cullen Douglas
• Directors: John Sayles
• Writers: John Sayles
• Producers: Maggie Renzi, Nancy Schafer
• Format: Closed-captioned, Color, NTSC
• Rated: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
• Number of tapes: 1
• Studio: Sony Pictures
• VHS Release Date: November 19, 2002
• Run Time: 141 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (26 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B00006L95H
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #351,306 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

Writer-director John Sayles weaves together the beauty, grime, and history of Florida in Sunshine State. The rumbling approach of real estate developers on a sleepy island sets the leisurely paced plot in motion. Sayles takes his time introducing his characters, gradually revealing how their lives intertwine, and, as always, teases magnificent performances out of his actors. Edie Falco is quietly brilliant as Marly, running an old-guard motel as progress marches on, and regarding the men in her life with a wry practicality. Mary Steenburgen gifts a small role with marvelous, spoiled humanity in a deft comic turn, and Angela Bassett slowly unfurls her character's depth with the elegance of a true pro. Sunshine State is a simple story, but never clichéd, possessing a glow worth basking in. --Ali Davis

From The New Yorker

The writer-director John Sayles will never be a natural filmmaker: he doesn't love and trust the camera enough. But this leisurely, ruminative movie about real-estate mischief and transiency in Florida has some of the most witty and large-spirited writing he's ever done for the movies and some of the best acting he's ever coaxed out of his performers. The movie chronicles the attempt of developers to take over a couple of decrepit beach towns north of Jacksonville and the ambiguous response of the locals-some fighting, some selling out. Edie Falco has the best role of her career as Marly, one of those Americans who possess more intelligence than they can use in an unsatisfactory job. Marly looks for men and makes bitter jokes that her listeners don't always understand. Angela Bassett is a failed actress who returns to the black middle-class beach town she left when she became pregnant at fifteen. The good talk swirls around these two, and the talkers include Alan King, Ralph Waite, Jane Alexander, Bill Cobbs, Mary Alice, Timothy Hutton, and Mary Steenburgen. It's a shrugging, life-goes-on movie about a state in which people pull things up by the roots, including themselves, and move forward. -David Denby
Copyright © 2006 The New Yorker

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

19 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Another wonderful Sayles creation, July 14, 2002

By 

Charlotte Vale-Allen (CT USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Author/screenwriter/director/editor--John Sayles is unique in the film industry. After a slew of odd jobs, he became a novelist, then a screenwriter and, ultimately, the winner of a MacArthur "genius" grant to finance his own films. His Return of the Secaucus Seven was the beginning of a series of highly individual films that include Brother From Another Planet, the wonderful Eight Men Out, Lone Star and now this bittersweet film about Florida. The cast--particularly Edie Falco and Angela Bassett, who both give shining performances--is wonderful, with a winning turn by Ralph Waite (remember The Waltons?) as Falco's blind father.

This is a film about history, about pride, about mother-daughter turmoil, about land development (and greedy, conniving developers) about the human condition. It is funny and touching, irreverent and fundamentally true; it is also well-conceived and sometimes hilarious. Mary Steenburgen (with one of those amazing facelifts that leaves her expressionless) nevertheless is great as what amounts to a middle-aged cheerleader, trying to pump civic pride into a place that has precious little of it. There are a number of small, golden moments: a scene between Waite and young Alex Lewis as Terrell is understated and lovely.

A fine, fine film with a splendid cast, and some messages that are delivered without a single heavy-handed moment.

Don't miss this one!

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars All You Ever Wanted to Know About Florida..., August 9, 2002

By 

Linda McDonnell "TutorGal" (Brooklyn, U.S.A) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

...or so it seems. "Sunshine State" concerns itself with the natives of two Florida beach communities, one white and the other black, who find themselves being wooed by luxury condo developers. Some are for it, and some are less so. While all the haggling is going on, we get to see the minidramas in various people's lives.

For instance, on the white beach, there's a young woman bored out of her mind by running her blind father's motel ( a different take on the Norman Bates charatcter if you will). Dad is a curmudgeonly old guy, while mom Jane Alexander is the local drama teacher queen who prefers to forget that the motel is somehow connected to her family. Daughter is starting up a romance with Timothy Hutton, who is designing the landscaping for that new community. He's a decent enough fellow, apparantly.

On the black beach, there's tension between an older woman and her daughter, who has just returned after an absence of many years, evidently to introduce mom to her new doctor husband. This daughter was once a drama student of Jane Alexander's, so there's a bit of overlap in the two communities. Daughter is none too happy to see that her old high school boyfriend has resurfaced, especially since he fathered the child she had to leave town to have.

From time to time, we also see Alan King and his golfer friends who just comment on the need to bring nature under the control of man, "Nature is overrated", King says flatly at one point, while teeing off.

Seems some of the other reviewers found "Sunshine State" overly long or soap opera-ish. I didn't find it either thing. I thought the story lines were all interesting enough, and that it was just long enough. Perhaps it's not the best movie I've seen this year, but I'm not sorry I saw it or anything.

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars More than It Seems, January 28, 2003

By 

BeachReader (Delaware) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Sunshine State [VHS] (VHS Tape)

This is so much more than a movie about real-estate developers moving into a sleepy coastal community in Florida, despite how it appears at the beginning. It is about the lives and dreams of those who live there; about those who have left and returned; and those who have never left, but want to. It is about dreams: dreams of individuals and dreams held by parents for their children. "Sunshine State" has a unique perspective.

Sayles examines each of his characters with great affection, it seems. No one is all-good or all-bad.....there is a lot of "middle of the road" here, mostly decent people. He lovingly develops his characters slowly and thoughtfully, and never judges these folks, no matter what they decide to do or not do.

The slow, but never boring, pace of this movie allows the viewer to get involved in the lives of its characters, all of whom are played to perfection by fairly high-profile actors (Angela Bassett, Edir Falco, Timothy Hutton, Mary Steenburgen, and Alan King, among others). The narrative is told in ovelapping stories with an intersection of most of its characters as conflicts unfold in the community.

This movie left me with a lot to think about.