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.
