A Very Sordid Wedding

Now and then we all could use a feel-good movie. Reality is deeply overrated, especially when shoved down our throats on daily basis. "A Very Sordid Movie" is not so sordid, quite the opposite. It's hilariously funny, smartly paced, poking fun at the homey, down South baloney. It's all fun and games until the script got to the potholes no car should drive on. It got kind of preachy, that works only on previously converted (hence no point to it at all), schmaltzy and frankly cloying. It is a damn shame that a person who wrote all of those funny lines got stuck on the most predictable and trite plot line. Not everything has to have a happy ending to feel good. Sometimes just stirring up trouble does the trick.

A Very Sordid Wedding (2017) was written and directed by Del Shores. In 2000, Shores directed Sordid Lives, and, after that, there was a Sordid Lives series on LOGO. (Everyone in the theater apparently knew all about LOGO, but I had to look it up.)

Before we saw the movie, we read the publicity that told us that there was a backstory to this new movie. However, for us the movie was hilarious, so you can enjoy it without knowing the backstory.

The film is set in Winters, Texas. It's a great example of a conservative, Bible-oriented small town. However, there are some dissenting people among the crowd.

One of them is Latrelle Williamson, played perfectly by Bonnie Bedelia. The other cast members are also very good actors, including Leslie Jordan as Earl 'Brother Boy' Ingram, and Emerson Collins as Billy Joe Dobson.

Whoopi Goldberg has an important cameo role as Rev. Abernatha Coleman.

This is the type of movie that's hard to describe. Something funny happens, and then something funnier happens, and then all hell breaks loose. It will work on the small screen, but it would be better in a theater. This isn't because of the larger image. It's because once an audience starts to laugh during a movie like this, the laughter builds on itself, and everything appears even funnier. (In fact, if you see the movie on the small screen, invite some friends over to watch it with you.)

Del Shores and Emerson Collins attended the screening and participated in a Q&A session afterwards. I didn't have a question, but I had a comment: "My compliments on portraying a serial killer in such a way that you felt sympathy, rather than anger, towards him." That couldn't have been easy.

We saw this film at Rochester's excellent Little Theatre, as part of Image Out, the great Rochester LGBT Film Festival. This is a wonderful movie, and worth seeking out.

An anti bigotry film is very welcomed, but this film is horrendous. The characters are foul mouthed, talk all the time and just won't stop being nasty to each other. There is constant bickering, and nonstop negative interactions. It is such a pity that an anti bigotry film ends up being nasty and negative.

I traditionally do post reviews. I liked this movie. When you need to laugh watch this movie and this movie will most definitely do that. The special appearances are well placed in this film as well as the locals from Texas.

I can't write a better review than others have done, except to say I grew up in that part of the world, which makes me a bit of an expert on the characters and setting. I don't talk to my relatives there any longer, BTW - once you see this film, you'll understand why. I know I do.

Not that I wouldn't call them, but, well... just watch the "Jimmy Ray Brewton" (Levi Kreis) character and you get the worst side of that bunch. If you use proper grammar and spelling and occasionally eat a salad, you would find yourself in the same place as Latrelle (Bonnie Bedelia) very quickly.

The eye shadow. The hair. The clothes. Even the accents. East Texas to a nut!!!

I bet you'll like this very sordid wedding, too! I haven't even finished the film yet because I'm taking time to post some of the most hilarious quotes I've ever heard on film!

Save me! Make all the ugly in the world go away!!!