Awards and Recognition:
2000 Austin Gay and Lesbian International Film Festival (aGLIFF): Winner, Best feature
2000 L.A. Outfest: Winner, Audience Award - Outstanding Soundtrack.

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by Frank Wilkins
In Sordid Lives, playwright Del Shores directs and adapts his wildly popular play of the same name to the big screen. It is a busy little coming-out-of-the-closet comedy that pokes fun at white trash in general and Texas white trash specifically. While the story probably works better on the stage than it does as a movie, the dialogue and the acting are brilliant and seem to keep the thing afloat long enough to never seem boring.

Several plot threads run concurrently as we learn that Peggy dies after she trips over a pair of wooden legs left on the floor of the hotel room where she was involved an affair with G.W. (Beau Bridges). Noletta, G.W.’s wife (Delta Burke), finds out about the affair and subsequently joins LaVonda (Ann Walker) as they embark on a “Thelma and Louise” type rampage directed at G.W. and several of his bar buddies.

Years before, one of G.W.’s buddies was responsible for beating LaVonda’s brother, Earl “BrotherBoy” Ingram (Leslie Jordan) so badly that he is now on an extended stay in a mental facility where he entertains his fascination with being gay, wearing women’s clothing, and impersonating his idol, Tammy Wynette. He endures therapy sessions with his psychiatrist (Rosemary Alexander), who is determined to “therapy” the gay out of him so that she can publish her book and get on the “Oprah Show”.

Almost at the same time in L.A., Brother Boy’s nephew Ty, is visiting a shrink who is helping him cope with the fact that he is ready to come out of the closet before he is to return to Texas for his grandmother’s funeral.

Acting as somewhat of a thread that holds the story together is Olivia Newton-John as Bitsy Mae, the bar singer, who pops in occasionally to sing a trashy honky-tonk ballad and to give the movie an often needed retreat, just before things begin to spiral out of control and fall into silliness.

The movie looks very much like a videotaped run-through of the stage show. The sets are one-dimensional, and the actors seem to move across the screen in a single plane. The digital hand-held video camera also lends an amateurish feel, reminding us of the film’s low budget and stage-born roots. Technical aspects aside, the story within Sordid Lives never becomes dull and is actually the star of the show. The interconnected relationships of the characters are very complex, well thought out and the script does an admirable job of keeping the relationships from becoming overly confusing. There is a brilliant display of on-screen chemistry as most of the players from the stage show are brought in to portray their characters on the big screen.

I want to bring special attention to Leslie Jordan’s inspired performance as ?Brother Boy?. Jordan is so comically expressive that he is, by the far, the film’s standout performance. The scenes with his therapist (Rosemary Alexander) jump off the screen and would become instant classics if it weren’t for the obscurity of the film as a whole. He even manages to make me laugh during the commentary segment of the DVD.

Being from Texas, I expected to connect a bit more with Sordid Lives. And with Shores throwing jabs at so many Southern stereotypes it’s difficult to see how he missed more than he hit. It is very reminiscent of Joe Sears’ and Jaston Williams’ Greater Tuna stage plays where the characters are the main attractions. But perhaps sometimes, wonderful little stage gems like this are best kept on the stage

Frank Wilkins

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Complete Cast: