Sordid Lives (2000)

37% of critics liked it
(27 reviews)
86% of users liked it
(3,188 ratings)

Writer-director Del Shores serves up a heaping helping of Southern-fried comic melodrama in this adaptation of his own play about infidelity, country & western music, and Airstream trailers. When their sister dies, Latrelle (Bonnie Bedelia), LaVonda (Ann Walker), and Sissy (Beth Grant) plan her… More Writer-director Del Shores serves up a heaping helping of Southern-fried comic melodrama in this adaptation of his own play about infidelity, country & western music, and Airstream trailers. When their sister dies, Latrelle (Bonnie Bedelia), LaVonda (Ann Walker), and Sissy (Beth Grant) plan her funeral -- an unenviable task, considering that they must carefully hide the deceased's affair with amputee G.W. (Beau Bridges) from his wife, the vindictive Noleta (Delta Burke). Meanwhile, the trio has to come to terms with two cases of sexual orientation: Latrelle's openly gay soap-opera star son Ty (Kirk Geiger), whose sexuality she continues to deny; and their only brother, Boy (Leslie Jordan), who's serving a sentence in a mental ward for his adamant belief that he is actually country & western legend Tammy Wynette. Playing an aspiring singer-songwriter, Olivia Newton-John turns up to provide the film with the occasional musical interlude. ~ Michael Hastings, Rovi

Play Trailer

Rating, Runtime: R, 1 hr. 51 min.
Directed By: Del Shores
Written By: Del Shores
Genres: Drama, Comedy

In Theaters: Jan 1, 2000 Wide
On DVD: Mar 18, 2003
Studio: Regent Entertainment

Critic Reviews

Robert K. Elder, Chicago Tribune
A train wreck you can't help but watch.
Erin Meister, Boston Globe
While the film at times feels like a clumsily acted play, a surprising turn by Delta Burke carries the cast out of the doldrums of an often-strained plot line.
Geoff Pevere, Toronto Star
A movie that, while robustly performed ... has the strange effect of not so much opening up a play for the screen as closing it in.
Rick Groen, Globe and Mail
If the film's flaws are large, so are its laughs.
Wesley Morris, San Francisco Chronicle
The laughs come in all the wrong places when they come at all.
David Hunter, Hollywood Reporter
Shrill and punishingly unfunny.
Janet Branagan, Apollo Guide
Runs the risk of alienating its audience by going a little too far over the top and, in its efforts to be different, delivers instead, more of the same.
Walter Chaw, Film Freak Central
Texans are idiots, but they have hearts as big as the great outdoors--I get it already.
John J. Puccio, Movie Metropolis
The characters in Sordid Lives are dull and shrill, and its plot is pointless.
John J. Puccio, Movie Metropolis
Its stereotypes are insulting, its jokes are unfunny, and its emotions are labored. Sordid Lives is a sordid movie.
Chris Hewitt (St. Paul), St. Paul Pioneer Press
If only the lives in Sordid Lives were sordid. Instead, the movie might better be titled Loud Lives.
Jean Lowerison, San Diego Metropolitan
Check this out if you're in the mood to laugh at humanity's looniness.
Jeffrey Bruner, Des Moines Register
Things always feel about a half step from spinning wildly out of control, but Sordid Lives remains a guilty pleasure that you enjoy and keep to yourself .
David Elliott, San Diego Union-Tribune
The corn of Sordid Lives comes heavily salted -- nudity, bold talk, gay coming-out, transvestism -- but it's the crunch of the corn that will either win you or send you desperately to the lobby for the real thing.
Kim Linekin, eye WEEKLY
Long-winded comedy.
Liz Braun, Jam! Movies
Big, trashy fun.