SOUND OF HOPE: THE STORY OF POSSUM TROT

Sound of Hope: The Story of Possum Trot, Angel Studios

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Review by Mark Dujsik | July 3, 2024

The importance of the message of Sound of Hope: The Story of Possum Trot is obvious. Some closing text informs us there are about 400,000 children in foster care throughout the United States, in need of stable and loving homes, and co-writer/director Joshua Weigel's movie focuses on the dramatized story of a single community in East Texas that heard such statistics as a call to action.

Over the course of five years, families in Possum Trot, an unincorporated area, adopted more than 70 children in the local foster system. They didn't have guarantees about how this would work out, and since most of the people living there were working class, financial struggle was almost inevitable.

That's not even accounting for the likelihood that these children would be the victims of abuse and would be suffering traumas these families might only comprehend as an idea. The challenges were many and, in some cases, unforeseen, and in this movie, a social worker wisely points out that, when all the "lovey-dovey" feelings of taking a new child or new children into the family fade, there's the potential for a lot of hard work to accomplish. These children could have psychological scars and emotional wounds that the love, safety, and security of a family might heal, but such a process takes time and effort that ordinary people, trying to live their own lives, might not have to offer, though no fault of their own, in the long run.

Undeniably, this movie has good intentions, and those carry this material a decent way through its story, which revolves around one family in the community as they adopt three children and try to serve as an example to those around them. The central characters are Donna (Nika King), who hears a call from on high following the death of her mother to expand her family with those most in need of one, and her husband Rev. WC Martin (Demetrius Grosse), who's skeptical of the plan at first but becomes an advocate for the idea and determined to be a father to these kids.

Before adopting any of the children, the Martins have two children, Ladonna (Kaysi J. Bradley) and Princeton (Taj Johnson), who was deprived of oxygen at birth and has required special care his entire life. Alone, the family's story is inspiring. Taken with the bigger picture of more than 20 or so other families in Possum Trot doing the same thing under other challenging circumstances, it's enough to engender some belief in the basic goodness of people—a refreshing notion, since evidence of that can seem in short supply at times.

The screenplay, written by the director and his wife Rebekah Weigel, lays on this sentiment thick, with Donna providing narration at almost every turn about the needs of these children, the decency of the folks in Possum Trot, and how the community's shared faith gives them the strength to endure. With all of that, though, one might keep thinking back to the words of that social worker, named Susan Ramsey and played by Elizabeth Mitchell, because all of this only takes these families and children so far. It also takes the movie only so far.

That's mainly the case in terms of the adopted children, who are portrayed in only one of two ways. The first is as smiling faces, caught up in senses of familial affection and communal unity that they possibly have never felt before. The second is as the products of trauma that the kids—being kids—can't comprehend, the families only broadly understand, and the movie uses as a source of late-story conflict.

There's a scene later in the movie, after a montage of various families having trouble paying the bills and maintaining their homes and comforting children dealing with psychological issues, in which WC sermonizes about those challenges. It's helpful for the parents of these kids, but one wonders what the children must think hearing their presence referred to as a "burden" and the source of so many problems for these families. The pastor means well, of course, but the fact that the screenplay and filmmaking possess no regard for the kids in that particular scene is a symptom of how much the entire movie pushes them in the background. It seems to have no overt concern for what they've been through and how their lives might be made better.

The one exception is Terri (Diaana Babnicova), the third child adopted by the Martins, who endured unspeakable abuse by her mother. At times, she imagines herself to be a cat to escape those memories and feelings, and with every step forward Donna and WC think they're making in connecting to the girl, Terri resists, because she can't trust anyone, let alone people who say they love her.

It's a heartbreaking story (A pair of scenes involving a yellow dress are devastating). In theory, there are others like it happening in the backdrop of this movie that are just overlooked for the good feelings of the material's message. Again, one can't deny Sound of Hope: The Story of Possum Trot its sincerity and the genuine feeling of inspiration it offers in its best moments, but the existence of Terri's story, which becomes a simplified means of creating tension by the third act, shows how much is missing from this narrative.

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