Blues for Willadean

Blues For Willadean explores the hidden emotions, shame and secrecy of battered women, while also offering hope, healing and truth. A delicate blend of frightened humor and pain, the film delves into the heart of abuse. Writer and director Del Shores draws the audience into the fire, allowing them to laugh one minute and cry the next as they experience emotions revealed from all sides – the abuser, the abused, and the powerless bystander.

Willadean “Willi” Winkler (Beth Grant) is trapped in a marriage with J.D. Winkler (David Steen), a blue collar truck driver who controls her money, her friends and her actions through the often realized threat of physical violence. Set in Mesquite, Texas, they live in a trailer park next to Willi’s only friend, LaSonia (Octavia Spencer), who offers no-nonsense observations and advice. The trailer park’s newest resident, cocktail waitress Rayleen Hobbs (Dale Dickey), has gotten a job at the local watering hole where she encounters J.D. The characters are interwoven with the help of the specter of a mysterious Blues Singer (Debby Holiday) who encourages Willi through music to push for more than the life J.D. allows for her.

Explosive one-sided arguments filled with pain, lost dreams and anger erupt and build over time as Shores reveals the dangerous dance between the abused and the abuser they love and hate, until one disastrous night it goes too far and the lives of those in the trailer park will never be the same.