Roadside Attractions has acquired all U.S. rights to Mitchell Lichtenstein’s family comedy, HAPPY TEARS, with an all star cast including Parker Posey, Demi Moore, Ellen Barkin and Rip Torn, it was announced today by Howard Cohen, Co-President, Roadside Attractions. Roadside Attractions, through their deal with Lionsgate, released Lichtenstein’s feature film debut and Sundance hit, TEETH, in 2008. HAPPY TEARS, written and directed by Lichtenstein, recently had its world premiere at the 2009 Berlin Film Festival. Roadside plans to release the film first quarter 2010. Lionsgate (NYSE: LGF) will handle home video and other domestic ancillary rights. Inferno Entertainment is selling international rights for the film at the Cannes market.
Jayne (Parker Posey) and Laura (Demi Moore) are about to take on the first man they just might not be able to handle: their seventy something-year-old father Joe (Rip Torn). Dutiful daughters returning to the house they grew up in, Jayne and Laura are forced to take a closer look at their own not-so-perfect lives while dodging childhood memories. Laura suspects that Joe needs full-time care, but Jayne refuses to believe that their father’s condition is that serious. Jayne’s compulsion to escape reality only increases Laura’s attempts to yank her back down to earth. Meanwhile, Joe still sings and plays the blues on his prized guitar, and the lively widower even has a new “ladyfriend,” shameless and sassy Shelly (Ellen Barkin). But as the visible moments of their father’s impending senility increase, the family dynamics spiral out of control. Tensions flare as the close sisters must also juggle their own very different lives – Laura’s busy environmentalist work schedule and mother of three small children, and Jayne, desperate to finally have a baby with her workaholic art-dealing husband Jackson (Christian Camargo). Their adventures back home are not without magic, mischief and mayhem, and even a search for buried treasure in the backyard! In the end, any tears that Jayne and Laura might shed will be happy ones.