Things You Can Tell Just By Looking At Her, the all-female tableau film which world premiered at this year's Sundance Film Festival and which opened Un Certain Regard at Cannes, will go straight to Showtime in North America, bypassing a theatrical release by rights-holder United Artists (UA).

UA, the specialised arm of MGM, bought domestic rights to the movie prior to Sundance from production company Franchise Pictures and the film was set to open during the summer. However, Showtime aggressively pursued the rights from MGM, closing the deal for US premiere rights with MGM Worldwide Television Distribution.

"Under our output deal with MGM, this film would have debuted on Showtime after its theatrical release," said Matthew Duda, executive vice president, program acquisitions and planning for Showtime Networks Inc. "However, once we saw the film in Sundance, we felt strongly that Things would be perfect for debut on Showtime in terms of its subject matter and intimate story lines. We are aggressively looking to work with the best talent in the business and are thrilled to have such a remarkable film and are determined to make Things an event on the channel."

Written and directed by Rodrigo Garcia, Things You Can Tell Just By Looking At Her stars Glenn Close, Holly Hunter, Cameron Diaz, Calista Flockhart, Amy Brenneman and Kathy Baker. International rights are handled by Franchise Pictures.