We’ve been looking forward to Brian De Palma‘s next planned feature, his take on the scandal at Penn State involving former defensive coordinator Jerry Sandusky and his 52 counts of sexual abuse charges. Set to play former head coach Joe Paterno is Al Pacino, but it looks like we’ll have to wait a little longer since HBO has temporarily suspended pre-production to reassess the budget. In the meantime, we have a documentary on the events, Happy Valley, coming from The Tillman Story director Amir Bar-Lev.
Unfortunately we weren’t big fans of it at Sundance, saying, “Far too sloppy a film considering the touchy subject matter, Happy Valley gets lost in dissecting the slipshod media coverage that occurred as the Jerry Sandusky Scandal was unfolding, instead of offering anything new in the way of evidence or documentation. This is subpar work coming from accomplished documentarian Amir Bar-Lev. If you watch the news, Happy Valley isn’t worth your time.” The first trailer has now landed and can be seen below ahead of a release next month.
Nestled in the idyllic area known as Happy Valley lies the town of State College and the home of Penn State University. For over 40 years, Joe Paterno was the celebrated head coach of the school’s storied football team. Lauded not only for his program’s success on the field, but also for students’ achievements in the classroom, Paterno was a revered figure in a town where team loyalty approached nationalistic fervor. Then in November 2011 everything changed when longtime assistant coach Jerry Sandusky was charged with 40 counts of child sex abuse, setting off a firestorm of accusations about who failed to protect the children of Happy Valley. Filmed over the course of the year after Sandusky’s arrest as key players agreed to share their stories, HAPPY VALLEY deconstructs the story we think we know to uncover a much more complicated and tragic tale.
Happy Valley opens on November 19th in theaters and two days later on VOD.