“A Very Sordid Wedding” Painted With Love

Release Date：Mar/10/2017
Genre：Comedy
Director：Del Shores
Cast：Bonnie Bedelia、Leslie Jordan、Dale Dickey、Caroline Rhea、Emerson Collins

Viola's Rating：6.8





As marriage equality was finally achieved in Taiwan, 2019 Taiwan International Queer Film Festival (TIQFF) featured Screenwriter Director Del Shores’ “A Very Sordid Wedding” as the opening feature film, a long-awaited sequel to his “Sordid Lives” in 2000. With the film being released in the US on March 10, 2017, it’s rather late, but definitely better than never to have it enjoy a run at TIQFF in Taiwan.

Winning six awards at FilmOut San Diego including Best Screenplay, Best Actress, Best Supporting Actress, Best Comedy and Best Ensemble, this comedy follows sisters Latrelle, LaVonda and Aunt Sissy on their journey feeling tired of the anti-gay bigotry and religious diehards in their town, Winters, Texas. They decide to protest an "Anti-Equality Revival" which aims to ban any same sex weddings in their county. The entwined numerous colorful characters from the previous "Sordid Lives" not only show up again, but also decide that a wedding is exactly what this narrow-minded town desperately needs.

Since both Director Shores and Producer Emerson Collins are Christian, they once again try to communicate their points of view from preconceptions about LGBTQ within churches. Not to criticize the conservatism, but to convey the concept that “God loves everyone” and that Christian communities also share considerate and loving thoughts with LGBTQ groups.

While this may be considered as a controversial issue to some, especially when the background of the flick is set in a small town in the south with a Baptist church, it’s extremely bright for Director Shores to continue applying his talent making comedies to “A Very Sordid Wedding” so that the motion picture itself can be rather friendly to conservative audience, and thus it’s easier for them to absorb every detail of this new information.

Although the A story is about Latrelle and her gay son, bisexual and drag queen are also depicted in the movie. Even though they don’t have as much screen time as the others, how people react to them means that there’s discrimination within LGBTQ group as well, and that’s exactly why loving oneself is always more important than learning to love one another.

Besides, “A Very Sordid Wedding” doesn’t focus on LGBTQ only. It comprises “love” in general. Different forms of love and relationship are seen in the movie such as family love, long-lost first love, love at first sight, and of course, gay romance. No matter what circumstances, “love wins” is an undeniable truth.

Obviously “sordid” means “dirty and unpleasant”, but meanwhile “A Very Sordid Wedding” not only represents precious values, but also stands for a beautiful and pleasant picture that Director Shores painted with love.

Picture Credit: IMDb