Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Hello, everyone, and welcome back to another episode of movie deputy reviews, where I, your one and only deputy. I am here to kind of bring you another in depth interrogation of a movie that's probably gonna ruffle some feathers. Now, the movie itself may not ruffle some feathers, but my review of this might. So this might be worth sticking around as a, just a reminder, just kind of help our numbers out. And I hope that if you are a loyal listener, that you will have already done so. And if you are new to movie deputy, please, you know which buttons to click. See that you never missed the latest and greatest movie deputy content. Because I am not afraid to go there on these movies. I'm not afraid to kind of cross that line and as Deadpool would say it, break through the fourth wall. So I'm kind of going to do that with the movie today. I want to say this movie that we're going to be talking about today, I am giving a guilty rating to. And that is because the content of the story itself. Now, I want to get into something a little bit before I get into the movie. The same studios that did this one, did the movie that I've given the highest rating I've ever given a movie to Angel Studios. And the one that I am referring to is Sound of freedom. That one has gotten the highest score I've ever given to a movie, like ever. It got a nine and a quarter out of ten, which is the highest score I've ever given out of almost 20 or 2200 movies. Plus, now that we have reviewed, and this one is done by the same studio, and if you have not caught that review yet, please go back and listen to that one. Go ahead and pause this one and go back and listen to that. And then come back to this one. Because I do think that that's going to be important for what we're going to be talking about here today. So I'm going to pause here just for a second.
[00:01:57] As you saw, welcome back. It has been more than a few seconds. If you took that time to go back and listen to the other review of Sound of Freedom, and now you are back. Welcome back. If you have just decided to stick this out, please bear with me through that last pause on that. Because my big thing was sound of freedom. And you probably heard the emotion in my voice with that movie was, what about the kids?
[00:02:23] What about the children? We were seeing what happened with the traffickers themselves, and we saw that a small part of the children were rescued, but there's so many more out there and it just seems like a forgotten statistic.
[00:02:37] And that even goes for people in our own country, people right here in America, kids right here in America, they are almost a forgotten statistic. And that's kind of where sound of hope really takes us. It is in a little town called Possum Trot, Texas. East Texas. I think it's East Texas. And it just.
[00:02:59] This is a very small little town. It's a very tight community. There's, like, 22 families in this entire town, and it's just very close knit, and it's all centered around their church, and which is a great thing. I was like, I'm not knocking that in the least, but it's where this story finds its strength. And the young woman that we see in this story, the mom, the matriarch of this family, she really just tries to do everything that she possibly can. I mean, like, above and beyond and then some. Her name is Donna, Donna Martin. And what she has done in this community, just bringing everybody together, but she is only that way because the way that she was raised, her mom was the mother of 18. So she. So Donna is one of 18 children that her mom raised in this little one room, rundown shack type building. It almost reminds you of, like, the song fancy a little bit. It's like, think back to, like, her description of the way she was raised there, except you can kind of maybe apply that to Donna here and how she was raised. Well, and her mother was her everything. We see that fairly early on in this movie. And also, I want to touch on, if you are going to this movie, it's going to start with a cartoon, and it makes you wonder if you were sitting in the right movie. And it's actually just a sneak peek of the movie, David, that is coming out at Christmas. So I want to give people just kind of heads up on that. If you walk in and there's a cartoon playing, that is why.
[00:04:37] But back to the movie. Like I said, to Donna, her mother was everything. And to her siblings, her mother, she was the rock of the family, the true matriarch. Just the. I mean, the grit of what made her who she is. So when her mom passed away, she was really lost. I mean, to the point of praying God, praying to God to take her, too, because she could not deal with the pain and everything of that. And I don't personally know that feeling myself with a direct biological parent. I did just lose my amazing mother in love, and that was very difficult. My husband lost his mom recently. I have lost both of my parents. But I was not particularly close to either of them, so there was not that sense of loss. And did that affect how we reviewed this movie? I hope not. I truly hope not. I took a lot of things into account here, but as Donna is sitting there and she is just crying up to the heavens for God to take her, and you know me, no spoilers. She is inspired by some children that she sees, and this inspiration brings her to believe that God spoke to her. Now, depending on your belief system, will completely depend on your take on that. There are some christian beliefs that God speaks directly to us, and there's other ones that follow more strict doctrines that don't believe in that. And so that one needs to kind of be taken with a little bit of a grain of salt. But in this movie, it is taken wholeheartedly, and I want you to appreciate this movie for that.
[00:06:14] And so when she has that inspiration, she has that moment of forgive me if we're putting it this way, but it's her come to God moment. And she believes that God lifted all of that depression and anxiety and worry from her. But God told her that they need to adopt some children. Now, they have two children of their own, and one is special needs. I won't go into any more detail on that because I don't want to spoil that.
[00:06:40] But they're struggling. They're a pastor of a very small community family, and they're barely getting by as it is. So it's like, where do they even begin? Well, she decides to go take some classes and learn a little bit more about adoption, and it's God pointing her in the right direction. Because I'm a firm believer that if things kind of fall into place and they're, like, working as falling into place, and they're like, I wouldn't necessarily say easy, but they're possible.
[00:07:12] If they kind of fall into place, then that's the road you're meant to be going down. If you are running into obstacle after obstacle after obstacle, you're take another path. Because something, whether you believe in God or entity or whatever it is that you believe in, if something is blocking your way every which way you try to go to do what, do whatever this is, something's trying to tell you to go a different way. So in this, she just. She felt it and she knew it, that she needed to help these help kids. And so she reaches out and they do this adoption class, and they want the kids that nobody else wants. They want the unadoptables, they want the troubled kids, they want the problems and with that comes a lot of problems and comes a lot of content that is very difficult for some to watch. There were people that got up and walked out of this during the movie because of some of this content is so intense. Domestic violence, abuse, neglect, the, I mean, picture worst case scenarios, and then imagine it getting worse from there.
[00:08:25] And fortunately, the story does not stay focused on that. But it's impossible to get that out of your head as it goes. And so it's sharing all of that. And then she is basically seen as the first lady of her community.
[00:08:40] And their story of bringing these kids in, they find that even the simplest of things aren't so simple anymore. But they inspire people in their community to do the same. And with the state of Texas and with the help of somebody special named Susan, a lot of things start coming together.
[00:08:58] So in the end, they end up adopting so many kids into this community, and it's just. It's almost too much.
[00:09:10] But they find a way. They find a way to make things work. And they did something that has never been done before. And you're honestly gonna have to watch the movie to find out what that is because I won't spoil that. If you do go see this, please stay in the credits because it has the real stories and the real families of possum trot. The movie takes place in 1997, but the update at the end of the movie does take place here in 2024. And it's just there. There are some really special moments in this movie, but there are also some parts that, like I said, are more than difficult. No, like I said, if you went back and listened to sound of freedom, you'll know that I don't have a problem giving a movie with difficult content a good rating. I don't have a problem with that at all.
[00:10:00] I have a problem when movies make it seem like it's too easy, when it makes it seem like everything falls into place. And as long as you're doing this, it's all going to work out and have a happy ending because that's just not how it works.
[00:10:17] You see that a lot of the people that you see here have happy endings, but not necessarily in the traditional sense.
[00:10:25] So don't worry, that's no spoilers there. But this one, it's almost. It doesn't make light of it, but it does. I'm sorry. Buttero's trying to get in the office, so if you hear the door handle, that's just him. But this one, it almost.
[00:10:42] It tries to take you into it, but the emotions seem forced.
[00:10:47] The acting, though, at times it's absolutely beautiful. And you forget what you're watching at other times. Like I said, it just doesn't feel natural.
[00:10:57] I want that. I want that heartfeltness. That's not even a word. But I want that feeling of where you're just drawn into these characters, where you feel like you're a part of their lives, not just one. Where you feel like you're watching a Hallmark movie unfold on tv. And like I said, it's not the traditional happy ending. So no spoilers there, but how this plays out. And if you're not already aware, this is based on a true story. So I do like to let people know that. But score wise, you're probably wondering, okay, get around to it. What's the score you gave this one? See, here's where I know I'm going to ruffle some feathers, and here's why I've made you wait till the end, because I was afraid if I told you this too early that you were going to stop listening. And honestly, I've had that. I've had even feedback on that. So sometimes I give the hard scores up front, and sometimes I wait till the end. I am giving. Sound of hope the story of possum trot, a five out of ten on the deputy scale. Just because it. Just for as important as the story was and as beautiful as it was told, it just was missing something. So I do recommend that you go see this one, especially if you are an adoptee or if you have adopted someone who has was not. It hasn't necessarily been the easiest road. You're not alone. You're definitely not alone in this. There are some obvious racial tensions at one point in the movie that whether or not that was necessary or part of the story remains to be seen. But I just felt like maybe it was taken a little bit too far. So is this for you? That's gonna be completely up for you to decide. But I hope I have given you enough information to make up your own mind, because that's really what I'm trying to do here. So it's like I said, I'm not afraid to go down that road with it. But I hope that this has helped you. And I hope you come back tomorrow, because tomorrow is going to be an eye opener. I'll talk to you soon. Bye.
