Happy Tears

Jayne (Parker Posey) and Laura (Demi Moore) deal with the onset of their father’s dementia. Rip Torn, whose own demented door-knocking made so-called celebrity news, raucously plays Dad. Posey returns to form, portraying a stressed-out socialite and big spender. She was in danger of becoming a caricature of herself, a status Moore suffered. But she can act. Moore inhabits the dowdy, bitter life of Laura without overture. Ellen Barkin’s damn funny as Dad’s latest girlfriend and a junkie pretending to be a nurse. The son of Pop Art icon and American artist Roy, Mitchell Lichtenstein inserts an apparent apparition of himself in the form of Jackson (Christian Camargo), the wealthy, guilt-ridden son of a famous dead artist. Along with the Lichtenstein-styled graphics, this only gets in the way of a good story.