Happy Tears Synopsis & Summary

Teeth director Michael Lichtenstein takes a sharp turn from teen-oriented satire to mature family drama with this semi-autobiographical story concerning a pair of grown-up sisters who return to their family home in order to care for their ailing father. Jayne (Parker Posey) and Laura (Demi Moore) has long since moved out of their family home when they discover that their father (Rip Torn)'s health has taken a turn for the worse. Returning to Pittsburgh in order to slowly degenerating dad, the sisters quickly realize that their father is in total denial about his condition. Jayne has been shielded from the harsher side of life since she was just a little girl, and now as Laura begins pushing her sister to accept their bleak reality, their father takes a seedy lover (Ellen Barkin) who immediately rubs the girls the wrong way. But dealing with the father becomes the least of Jayne and Laura's worries when the drama in their personal lives drags the demons of their past up to the surface and out in to the open. - Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide