Hillbilly Elegy

Hollywood son Ron Howard has directed some wonderful pictures—Splash (1984), Parenthood (1989), Apollo 13 (1995), and more—but it’s hard to think of a worse choice to helm an adaptation of J. D. Vance’s acclaimed but polarizing 2016 memoir Hillbilly Elegy. The book, which chronicles Vance’s experience growing up in (and out of) rural American poverty, became a touchstone for both liberals and conservatives during the end of the Obama presidency. The book was practically considered essential reading for those trying to understand the racial, cultural, and economic divide that led to Donald Trump’s election.

It is predictable yet disappointing that the film adaptation of this book would not only fail to transcend its status as a go-to reference for the empty political talking points of the late ‘10s, but result in nothing more than yet another example of sub-par melodramatic studio picture hokum. We can only wonder what this movie might have been, were it directed and adapted by someone who really understood this culture.  But Howard and screenwriter Vanessa Taylor (Hope Springs, Divergent, The Shape of Water) seem to bend over backwards to depoliticize their source material in order to deliver run-of-the-mill Oscar bait about po’ folks overcoming adversity.

Every cliché Hollywood has ever employed about the lower class is in full view here. Seriously – the “which fork do I use” thing? Do these fancy dinner parties with elaborate place settings still happen? And if they do, do those outside the 1% really still not know that fancy people use different fancy forks for different fancy courses of a fancy meal?  Even if they haven’t personally been confronted with such a table—haven’t they seen Titanic or the myriad other popular movies that feature this exact scene? And how about the moment where Vance (played with bland charm by Gabriel Basso of Super 8 and The Kings of Summer) is embarrassed when his credit card get declined at a gas station—when this happens to someone of means in a movie it rings true, because wealthy people don’t expect to have their credit cards declined, but that’s not the case for those who, by necessity, have to know the status of their credit and how much money they have in the bank.

The bad movie tropes about these poor, poor, ignorant white folks just keep piling up in Hillbilly Elegy, which still manages to feature some fine performances. Neither Amy Adams, as J.D.'s erratic drug-addicted mother Beverly, or Glenn Close, as J.D.'s grandmother "Mamaw," embarrass themselves with hackneyed, two-dimensional turns. On the contrary, I would say these performances are all the more deserving of praise because they bring credibility and nuance to such ham-fistedly written roles in such a poorly executed narrative.  

Hillbilly Elegy is perfectly serviceable as a work of entertainment featuring some standout performances from a couple of great actors. But as an adaptation of such a seminal book (love it or hate it), the movie offers nothing more than the generic self-serving Hollywood studio portrayal of rural America. Worse, in a year when the best films are examining the systemic issues at the core of our society’s ills, it perpetuates the tired myth of the determined young man pulling himself up by his bootstraps and escaping the toxic culture the film purports to celebrate (or at least to reflect) by embracing an elitist, misogynistic, capitalistic, coastal attitude.

For a far better look at similar subject matter I would recommend Jessica Earnshaw's riveting documentary Jacinta made the same year but, as far as I know, still without a distributor.