Del Shores revisits cult comedy success with a very game cast in 'A Very Sordid Wedding'

Review: Del Shores revisits cult comedy success with a very game cast in ‘A Very Sordid Wedding’

By Gary Goldstein

Aug. 31, 2017 11:45 AM PT

“A Very Sordid Wedding,” Del Shores’ belated sequel to his 2000 cult-hit indie film “Sordid Lives” (based on his play, which also spawned a short-lived TV series), is as broad as the side of a barn but much more amusing.

Fans of Shores’ Bible-toting-and-quoting — and now debunking — hodgepodge of Southern-fried eccentrics living in rural Winters, Texas, should enjoy this new installment. The uninitiated, however, may get lost in this overlong picture’s dizzying array of characters, excess of back stories, present-day (actually, 2015) plot lines and sledgehammer messaging.

Set just after the U.S. Supreme Court decision that legalized gay marriage nationwide, the film involves a crisscross of events leading up to the Winters wedding of Ty (Kirk Geiger) and Kyle (T. Ashanti Mozelle), gay activists who’ve tied the knot in every state but Texas. The most outsized issue: the local Baptist church’s “Anti-Equality” rally to protest gay marriage. Two guesses which side will win.

Many of the funny and game actors from the first film and/or the TV show have returned here in all their big-haired, chain-smoking, trash-talking, bar-flying glory. They include Bonnie Bedelia, Dale Dickey (in a new role), Ann Walker, Caroline Rhea, Sarah Hunley, Emerson Collins (also a producer), Scott Presley and Leslie Jordan as hilariously beleaguered drag performer Brother Boy. Whoopi Goldberg, in a brief turn as Kyle’s minister mom, is a welcome new addition.

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