Sound of Hope: The Story of Possum Trot (2024) [Movie review]

Sound of Hope: The Story of Possum Trot is Angel Studios’ first major follow-up to 2023’s Sound of Freedom. While I attended multiple screenings of last year’s Sound of Freedom and met quite an assortment of characters, things felt different with Possum Trot. Much like the milieu of the reasonably bankrupt Chicken Soup for the Soul, this film deals in the most vague and nondescript tales of Christian love and charity. Much like last year’s Sound of Freedom, this film deals with children too! But, it comes at it from a friendlier angle.

Adoption…2024 A.D.

Adoption is still treated with gloved hands in American society. When our greatest heroes (Superman) to Judeo Christian Biblical figures (Moses) were adopted, when confronted with the basic construct in our daily lives, we act weird about it. Thankfully, Sound of Hope goes out of its way to show the reality of adoption. You are helping kids that the system left behind, but it’s expensive as hell. W.C. and Donna Martin are doing their best to take care of these kids, but you can’t fix the world.

Whether it is long term trauma or crippling financial costs, everything that goes into Adoption can break the average person. Does Sound of Hope bother to engage that problem past simple addressing it? Oh, not at all. There is only so much you can do in two hours or less, but it’s kind of grating how uninterested it is in servicing basic issues. But, that’s the point with these narratives.

Hear God in the trees

The common sense rule of thumb is to be naturally wary of anyone claiming to hear God speak to me. It never ends well, whether it triggers a Crusade or a nagging neighbor trying to sell you Amway. Much like with Sound of Freedom, Sound of Hope goes out of its way to not really answer anything outside of general awareness. While Freedom wanted you to get angry, Hope wants you to get inspired but obliviousness to the frustration of helping so many. Does it sound crazy, yet? Well, most well-meaning ideas do sound like that when written out and highlighted.

Even when the teenage Terri gets introduced to the couple, her issues are played off for laughs. She thinks she’s a cat and Elizabeth Mitchell (Lost) doesn’t seem to know what to do with her. Thankfully, there’s a rural Texan couple willing to take her in and bring her closer to the Lord. There is always this undercurrent of “Aren’t You Glad to be Saved?” in modern Christianity. But, it’s also followed up with a tenet of we’re not giving you a choice, but if you still don’t accept it…we’re going to antagonize you passively and directly.

The Story of Possum Trot is the Story of DON’T YOU DARE NOT BE PRO-LIFE

The Story of Possum Trot is lightweight Pro-Life propaganda. But, that’s what most Christian entertainment is before it gets super political. It’s a lightweight nudge of our ways are better and you should be part of it. Any outside derision is seen as something to be dismissed and in their narratives, there is no real challenge that faith in the Lord can’t overcome. If you were wondering about Terri from the previous section, she eventually has a mental breakdown. But, the couple baptizes her in the Possum Trot Baptist faith and she overcomes her mental issues.

That’s the kind of film you’re dealing with and your older relatives are going to love it. Seriously, it’s like Mayberry Mondo Cane at points, but at least it’s more earnest than something like Sound of Freedom. You feel the real love that the central couple has and the good-will of adopting this kids. However, everyone feels like a pedestrian Saint trying to do their best to one-up some authority that doesn’t seem to exist. Thankfully, the kids benefitted from all of these efforts.

Sound of Hope was made for grandparents

There is a reason why the old flock to films like this. Remember that most of them grew up in a time where Iron Lungs and Quarter per gallon gas prices were normal. Now they live in an age of AI and generally having to address that most of society wants to be treated like human beings. They are going to freak out and naturally gravitate towards tales of things that are simple. Kids need homes, good people adopt and nobody lives on the street.

Due to sheer never-ending news of seemingly religious based individuals and communities adopting kids, it’s natural for an outsider to feel like something hinky is going on. That being said, it’s also not fair to paint all faith-based individuals with the same paintbrush. Cautious optimism is the natural opening stance of the skeptical, again thanks to the litany of religious figures implicated in situations gone wrong. But, you’d have to be a cold individual not to marvel at the nature of the real-life case.

Ultimately, Faith-based films play strange in 2024

Everything has ulterior motives in the modern era. It doesn’t matter if you are left, right, center or in a dissociative state. While “Sound of Hope: The Story of Possum Trot” plays closer to traditional faith based film making, it doesn’t change the audience that will head to the theater that will see it. When you get to see the real couple behind the film’s story, the nature of what Angel Studios is trying to do becomes apparent. That little QR code shows up and asks audiences to pay it forward. However, that semi charity viewing scheme was successful for Sound of Freedom in a way I don’t see replicating for Sound of Hope.

Basically, people will pay and take part in that which promotes a negative. What helps Sound of Hope stand apart might end becoming what keeps it from being as successful. Sound of Hope on the surface is a story about people helping others to rise above the inequity and garbage found floating in the real world.

Read the first iteration of this story that brought Possum Trot to the masses. While it was written by one of the two main focuses, it gets at the heart of what Sound of Hope wants to do. That is find homes for kids that need some stability in their lives. You can’t mother the world, but you can help out the poor and downtrodden when you know they are there. To do otherwise is to leave them to suffer. That is the beauty of adoption and the underplayed beauty of Sound of Hope.

Sound of Hope: The Story of Possum Trot is now playing in theaters