Summary
- Hillbilly Elegy received a lot of bad reviews.
- The film arguably missed the point it was trying to convey. (86 characters)
- Controversy arose from the movie promoting dangerous stereotypes. (94 characters)
Ron Howard’s drama Hillbilly Elegy tells the true story of three generations of the Vance family, an Appalachian brood living in poverty whose young son eventually attends Yale Law School despite the odds being stacked against him. There, he finds himself unsurprisingly out-of-place but, by recalling the advice of his cartoonish granny (played by Glenn Close) and the resilience of his unstable, addicted single mother (Amy Adams), he perseveres and becomes a wealthy professional.
Despite Hillbilly Elegy's cast featuring some impressive acting pedigree in the form of Adams, Close, Freida Pinto, and Haley Bennett, Hillbilly Elegy received notably bad reviews. The film has a disappointing 25% on Rotten Tomatoes. The overwhelming sentiment is that the movie fails to express any meaningful understanding of the plight of the American working class, instead caricaturing some of the country’s most disenfranchised citizens for cheap and ineffective pathos.
Hillbilly Elegy True Story: What The Movie Changes About J.D. Vance's Family
In Netflix's adaptation of Vance's memoir, director Ron Howard takes some artistic license to piece together this reconciling of lifestyles.
What Hillbilly Elegy Reviews Said (& What They Mean)
Critics Call Hillbilly Elegy Unserious
“Adams plays every scene with the pedal to the metal, clocking zero to howling frenzy in 10 or 15 seconds… [in] the strange stew of melodrama, didacticism and inadvertent camp that Howard serves up.”
“The film Hillbilly Elegy isn’t meant for the people of Appalachia, or the Ozarks, or the Rust Belt. No hillbilly film is ever made for the people it depicts. They’re intended for people with power and security, people who want to believe that money is the same thing as integrity or intelligence and that, conversely, an absence of money indicates something about a person’s character… the most offensive performance of the film belongs to Amy Adams, who shrieks, squeals, and flails through scene after dreadful scene. As Vance’s mother, who suffers from undiagnosed mental health issues and an eventual substance abuse problem, Adams is a banshee”
“Hillbilly Elegy is like the 'personal statement' that an American teenager would put on an application to an Ivy League college… contrived and self-conscious.”
"Adams’s work is unfortunately calibrated, a gross pantomime of suffering that sees her screaming dialogue to the heavens… Hillbilly Elegy is a think-piece trap; it might be tempting to view little moments as sweeping commentary, but the film’s ambitions simply aren’t that serious.”
Although the performance from Kings of Summer star Gabriel Basso is receiving comparatively less ire than most of his co-stars, the depiction of Vance’s ascent into law school as an inspirational feat fell flat with many reviewers. Many noted that the source memoir also struggles to empathize with the working class as it focuses on Vance’s success and seemingly blames the struggling Appalachians for their plight. Originally intended to be an Oscar hopeful, Hillbilly Elegy ended up becoming a misguided misfire, most notable for its bad critical reception.
Glenn Close was nominated for both an Academy Award and a Golden Raspberry for her performance as Mamaw in Hillbilly Elegy.
However, what makes the reviews of Hillbilly Elegy even more brutal is the fact that the movie was meant to be taken seriously as a political statement or a "message movie". Both Hillbilly Elegy's book and poorly-reviewed movie adaptation were intended as a moving portrayal of a rugged individual succeeding despite his humble origins. Instead, the vast majority of reviewers agree that Hillbilly Elegy is more like a self-serving hagiography that dismisses most of its subjects, strips its story of any political point, and is dragged down by poor performances from usually reliable performers.
Why Hillbilly Elegy Became So Controversial
Hillbilly Elegy Puts Out A Dangerous Message
Ultimately, the movie's worst reviews are a perfect reflection of what makes Hillbilly Elegy so controversial. Although Vance intended his memoir to be a rags-to-riches success story, it is more of a condemnation of the poor. This fact not only makes the movie feel self-righteous, but it also risks spreading a very dangerous message to audiences. Those watching Hillbilly Elegy may take Vance's story and extrapolate it to other scenarios where it may not be applicable. Hillbilly Elegy upholds stereotypes that can only be described as hurtful.
It is likely that Hillbilly Elegy would have been controversial no matter when it was released, yet the ideas it promotes are particularly worrisome in this current day. Hillbilly Elegy depicts a highly divisive perspective, and as a result, only adds to the wedge that often separates Americans politically. Overall, Hillbilly Elegy can be condemned as a poor movie that does not live up to an already divisive source material.
Hillbilly Elegy
- Release Date
- November 24, 2020
- Runtime
- 116 minutes
- Director
- Ron Howard
Cast
Bo Hopkins-
Freida Pinto
WHERE TO WATCH
Directed by Ron Howard for release on Netflix, Hillbilly Elegy is a Drama film released in 2020 and stars Amy Adams and Glenn Close. The plot is based on author J.D. Vance's memoir of the same name and follows a family as they attempt to deal with their mother's unstable lifestyle.
- Writers
- Vanessa Taylor, J.D. Vance
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