In society, there are a lot of unfit mothers and/or families who have children, and they shouldn’t. I see this a lot in my everyday life. A lot of girls get pregnant at a young age or drug addicts and alcoholics are raising children, and they shouldn’t be. That’s where the Department of Children’s Services comes in. They take the kids and try to give them a good home. Sometimes, these homes aren’t a good placement either. It’s hard for them to give every kid without a family placement.  Sometimes, the kids are a good fit for the family’s Sound of Hope: The Story of Possum Trot is the story of one North-Eastern Texas community that won’t take no for an answer.

Possum Trot is a small, tight-knit town in North-Eastern, Texas. They are a religious community. They aren’t all necessarily doing that great, but they have a belief in family and their church and its pastor Reverend Martin (Demetrius Grosse). One woman, Donna Martin (Nakia King), lives with her husband, the Reverend, and their children. When she gets a message from God, she decides to start adopting children in need of homes. Even though they are struggling to make ends meet. 

This community is very close to one another. A lot of them are related to each other. They have faith in religion that ties them together, though. When one says she’s going to adopt children in need, the other families follow suit. Some of the kids are very good and are happy to be placed in this God-faring community. Others struggle to find this place, and the family they are placed with is very homely. It’s hard for some kids. They are just too messed up. That is why this story is so inspiring. This community uses its faith to get over a tough situation for everyone involved. 

I grew up in a very difficult home dynamic with an alcoholic father and a mother who tried to raise four kids. She was a saint in my mind for what she was able to do. That is until later, when I was a young adult, My father eventually stopped drinking, and we got over some of our struggles. Struggles constantly followed my family, though. Religion was not part of our lives for most of my upbringing.  We went to church sometimes as children,  but it didn’t last forever. That’s where this family and community differed from my upbringing.  Their faith helped them overcome the tough times. Faith can be a powerful thing if you have it in God. 

This period aspect of this story was very interesting to me. I love films that are set in a specific time and place like this one was. The cars and clothes and hairstyling were uniquely 90s, and I loved that about this movie. I’ve seen a lot of movies in the 90s, but I haven’t seen many films that are made today that are set in that decade. It’s funny now that I think about it that the 90s are thirty years or more ago. It’s strange to think about it. I felt like this decade was yesterday in my life, but it wasn’t.

Most of the cast is pretty unforgettable except for three people. Aforementioned the King and Grosse characters stood out to me quite a bit. They have a lot of scenes together as husband and wife. They argue, love, and console each other quite a bit. They also have a lot of interactions with the kids, specifically Terri. I felt like these people were fully fleshed out by the pair of lead actors in the movie. They reminded me of my parents to some extent. Regarding the financial difficulties and so forth and how they dealt with their kids. These performances were solid. I genuinely cared about their journey from the beginning to the end of this film.

There was one thing that struck me about this movie more than any other. That is the character of Terri (Diaana Babnicova). She had a rough upbringing. Some of the things she did were tough to watch. Specifically, the scenes where she was acting like a cat bothered me. As someone with a learning disability, I understand being different and hard to deal with for adults. She made me mad and sad at the same time. I felt for her while watching this film. The family’s faith helped them help her overcome her problems. The traumas of what she dealt with caused her to be this way and that was hard for me to grasp. I felt really bad for what she went through.

Sound of Hope: The Story of Possum Trot is an inspiring one. It’s hard to watch at times specifically because of the Terri character and the family’s financial struggles. It brought home a lot of my own struggles growing up in a difficult household. The faith-based aspects of the story resonated with me despite my lapse in religious behavior. This community fell back on what they believed in most to overcome the difficult times. These kids needed homes and that trumped everything else in the lives of the families. They came out of the hard times because they believed in the power of God. It just shows what having faith does to someone or a group of people like in this movie. Hopefully, this movie finds an audience. Once again Angel Studios has done it again. They have a knack for finding inspiring stories like this one Cabrini and Sight. 

4 stars

Dan Skip Allen