NIAGARA MOTEL

Niagara Falls—a romantic destination for newlyweds and lovers, a symbol of beginnings, of promise, and potential. For others, it’s a stopover in life, a crossroad at an uncertain location where tragedy waltzes with comedy, room by room at the Niagara Motel.

Loretta Bourgogne (Caroline Dhavernas, Hollywoodland) is the young, pregnant waitress at the Motel’s diner. A resilient observer of human drama, she has enough on her own plate: Dave (Tom Barnett, The Dead Zone), the underachieving stapler salesman she’s dating; Michael (Kevin Pollak, The Usual Suspects), the small-time hustler pushing Loretta into the world of adult video; Gilles (Normand Daneau, Cosmos), the father of Loretta’s unborn baby, who wants her back home in Quebec; her in-laws, Claude (Pierre Collin, Seducing Dr. Lewis) and Lucille (Daniele Lorain, Hidden Evil), who are seeking to adopt the unborn child; and Boris (Damir Andrei, Jumper), the brutish owner of the restaurant. But one person is eager to pull Loretta back from the edge – Boris’s kind-hearted daughter Sophie (Catherine Fitch, Saw IV), who offers Loretta a chance for genuine change and independence.

Checking in at the Niagara, and fleshing out the tapestry of transient lives, is Denise (Golden Globe nominee Anna Friel, Pushing Daisies), a recovering drug addict, and her ex-con husband R.J. (Kris Holden-Ried, The Tudors), who hopes to regain custody of their baby, all the while at the mercy of social worker Helen Mackie (Janet-Laine Green, MVP), who holds their fate in her hands; Henry (Peter Keleghan, Earth: Final Conflict) and Lily (Wendy Crewson, ReGenesis), an unhappily married middle-class couple facing bankruptcy—emotional and otherwise; Sandy (Krista Bridges, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde), a prostitute who serves as an unlikely inspiration for Lily’s financial security; and, finally, Phillie (Emmy Nominee Craig Ferguson, The Drew Carey Show), the Motel’s drunken janitor, a ghost of a man who circles the lives of everyone like a woeful Greek chorus, all the while moving toward his own extraordinary epiphany.

There’s something for everyone in Niagara Motel, an inviting portrayal of simple human lives as funny, sad, tragic, and surprising as life itself.