Sound of Hope: The Story of Possum Trot

This faith-based drama has an inspiring true story to tell about a tiny East Texas town that took in dozens of unwanted children. But it plays like an overlong soap opera.

Faith-based filmmaking has gone mainstream, and now comes in many variations. Many of these movies wear their faith lightly on the sleeve, telling a human story about people who happen to have religion as a big factor in their lives and decisions.

Others are more heavy-handed, where religion is the story and the people in the movie are just an instrument of spreading the good word. “Sound of Hope: Story of Possum Trot” is one of these.

It’s got an inspiring true story to tell about a tiny East Texas town of mostly Black folks who adopted dozens of orphaned or unwanted children. We’re talking about some of the most challenged kids imaginable, victims of abuse and abandonment and witness to unspeakable violence and degradation.

These are the children that no one wants, kids with behavioral issues and mental health challenges. And Possum Trot took in 77 of them all told.

“The piney woods of East Texas, where the Lord is easily found,” the narrator describes it.

Directed by Joshua Weigel from a screenplay he wrote with Rebekah Weigel, it’s executive-produced by Letitia Wright from “Black Panther” fame.

Nika King and Demetrius Grosse are the leads as Donna Martin and her husband, W.C. Martin, respectively. He is reverend of the tiny Bennett Chapel Baptist congregation, and she acts as the “first lady” — the standard bearer who sets an example for all the other wives and mothers.

King and Grosse both give emphatic performances as everyday folks who feel called upon to do extraordinary things. Which isn’t to say they don’t fight, become depressed and even contemplate returning their foster children back to the state agency.

Elizabeth Mitchell, best remembered from the “Lost” TV show, plays Susan Ramsay, a put-upon state worker in charge of pulling children away from abusive parents and placing them with foster parents, and possibly go on to be adopted by them. She becomes the Martin’s friend and ally, with the reverend going around to his flock convincing them they’re capable of taking in a few more lambs.

Donna’s sister, Dian (Jillian Reeves), is actually the first to take in a foster child after Donna waxed about it, and there’s a suggestion of a layer of competition between the two women, good-natured though it might be.

The movie, at 130 minutes long, is troubled by uneven pacing and scenes that seem to repeat the same dynamics over and over. We’ll get an incredibly powerful confrontation, and then things will waddle along placidly while we wait for the next one, which resembles the last.

The result is an almost episodic feel. More than anything, “Sound of Hope” plays like a soap opera — if a particularly Jesus-themed one. I was raised in the faith so people quoting from scripture or rocking in their chair to the spirit moving through them isn’t bothersome to me, but may seem alien to others.

The Martins’ biggest challenge is when they bring in Terri (Diaana Babnicova), a girl so traumatized that she has reverted to acting like a cat. Susan actually refuses to place her with them at first, arguing that they’ll soon grow frustrated and return Terri to state care, which will only worsen her mental state.

As time passes, Terri becomes a teenager with a rebellious spirit and a lustful eye for boys, constantly telling Donna she’s not her mother and can’t tell her what to do. She even takes to physically assaulting the Martins’ natural-born daughter. Donna reacts badly, trying to emulate the stern-but-loving touch of her own mother, and chastises herself for falling short.

Constantly hard up for money to take care of the children, the Martins and the other families often face things like having the electricity turned off or being unable to fix their only vehicle. There’s a telling scene where W.C. turns to the pastor (played by the director himself) of a white megachurch for help, and the power dynamic between them and their Black neighbors is laid bare.

There’s a lot to admire about “Sound of Hope.” It has solid production values, with beautiful photography (by Benji Bakshi and Sean Patrick Kirby) that shows off the east Texas vistas and hamlets stuck out of time.

Maybe there’s just too much movie here. It could easily be 40 minutes shorter, and edited with more of a coherent narrative throughline. As it is the film comes across as preachy and dull.

One doesn’t have to share the faith to be engaged by a story about it, but I fear only the truest apostles will appreciate this movie.