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Melissa Leo and Patton Oswalt Will Join Kickstarter-Backed Indie Film Unlovable

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The Kickstarter-backed indie film Unlovable has had something of a dream run on the crowd-funding site. On August 20, with one week left to go in its campaign, filmmaker Mark Duplass pledged to match every donation that came in during the final seven days, dollar for dollar. Now today, project creator Charlene deGuzman gets to make a few more big announcements. She hit her $50,000 funding goal and landed Patton Oswalt as an associate producer and Melissa Leo as a star. Unlovable will be based on deGuzman’s own life as a woman dealing with sex and love addiction, and the story will follow the lead character, Joy, who is described as “a twenty-something lost soul with a tiny body and a giant heart” on the movie’s Kickstarter page. Leo will play Maddie, “a powerful, grounded force” who becomes Joy’s sponsor. The project came about after deGuzman sent the Duplass brothers a comedy pilot she had written about the experiences that would become the foundation for Unlovable, and they introduced her to producer Jen Suskind (who worked on HBO’s Animals), which eventually led to her meeting another writer, Sarah Adina Smith, and the film’s director, Suzi Yoonessi. On the film’s campaign page, deGuzman says, “It’s important to me to bring awareness to sex and love addiction, and to help people feel less alone. With comedy, music, and a whole lot of heart, I want to make a feature film that shows the world the power of true intimacy and human connection.” And it seems like karma is majorly rewarding her for those efforts.

Melissa Leo, Patton Oswalt Join Unlovable