You don’t ever stop being an addict, you just learn to make better choices. That’s the advice Melissa Leo gives to a young woman in “Unlovable,” an indie dramedy that premiered at this year’s South by Southwest festival in Austin, Texas.
In the film, Leo plays the sponsor to a recovering sex and love addict named Joy (Charlene deGuzman). She introduces Joy to her quirky and reclusive brother (John Hawkes), who forms a garage band with Joy as she struggles to get her mind off a boyfriend. In the process, Joy learns the true nature of intimacy as they start making music together.
In this exclusive clip from the film, Joy pops the question to Leo’s character Maddie to see if she’d be willing to be her sponsor.
“We get what we think we deserve,” Maddie says to Joy upon seeing a cute, toy heart ring on Joy’s finger. Maddie is reluctant to help Joy out and encourages her to look for another sponsor. But in a sweet moment, she puts her name in Joy’s phone as “Maddie It’s Going to Be Okay.”
“Unlovable” is directed by Suzi Yoonessi and produced by Jay and Mark Duplass under their Duplass Brothers Productions label. It premiered at SXSW and won the SXSW Gamechanger Special Jury Recognition Award.
The project first came together when the film’s star deGuzman sent a Twitter DM to Mark Duplass in 2014 asking him to read her pilot script based on her own experience with sex and love addiction. Duplass said he “saw the raw emotion and humor and the explosive energy” in it. The film focuses on the female perspective of sex addiction, shying away from random sex in bar bathrooms and highlighting the difference in being addicted to both sex and love.
Orion Classics will release “Unlovable” in theaters on Nov. 1 followed by a VOD and Digital HD release on Nov. 2. Watch the clip from the film above, and check out a trailer here.