'Hillbilly Elegy' Review: A Bestselling Memoir Becomes Oscar-Season B.S.
0When J.D. Vance’s memoir hit shelves in 2016, it became a surprise bestseller, a controversy magnet, and an impromptu state-of-the-nation address — the must-read if you wanted insight into why Donald Trump was able to harness rage and frustration of the white underclass into a single presidential win. A tale of Down South struggle and upward-mobility ambition, it regaled readers with one man’s roots in the backwoods of Kentucky, his family’s migration to Rust Belt Ohio, and his hardscrabble journey through an Ivy League institution’s hallowed halls. This Appalachia-to-Yale odyssey also touches on domestic abuse, substance dependency, family values, harsh economic realities, and the stubborn pride of “hillbillies” and the prejudice they faced when talking to snooty elites. It’s a survivalist tale in which American structures predicated on haves versus have-nots sub in for an unforgiving Mother Nature, and a bootstrap mentality is all that’s needed to transcend the late-capitalism blues. The memoir aspect was compelling. Vance’s fried-baloney-sandwich-for-thought notions about how the poor just need to get their shit together were … less so, cultural bona fides or not. Reviews Trailers of the Week: 'The Crown,' 'Hillbilly Elegy,' 'Letter to You,' and More Glenn Close, Amy Adams Star in Trailer for Upcoming Adaptation of 'Hillbilly Elegy' Reviews Keith Moon's 10 Wildest Pranks 32 Most Outrageous MTV VMAs Moments A hot-button bestseller means book clubs and brand recognition, which usually means a movie, which specifically means a movie being released during a period where industry types — possibly in some sort of academy involving arts and sciences — might weigh in with potentially golden results. Hence, we now have Ron Howard’s Hillbilly Elegy, a live-action rendering of various cartoonish aspects of Vance’s book that strives for the Important Statement Seal of Approval. (The film is currently screening in select theaters, though trust us when we say you don’t want to risk your life seeing this. It hits Netflix on November 24th.) The politically conservative, anti-welfare streak in the author’s writing feels surgically removed; only the turbulence remains, smothered in the syrup (or “syrrpp,” a Southern pronunciation that’s affectionately mocked here) of seasonal treacle. No one would accuse this adaptation of owning the libs or pandering to a base. It’s merely poverty-class cosplay, a pantomime of what people derisively call “white trash” triumph and tragedy being sold as prestige drama. It’s an attempt to serve Spam on a sterling silver platter. Down in Jackson, Kentucky, in 1997, young Vance (Owen Asztalos) spends his idyllic summer days biking around the backwoods, waxing poetic about turtles, and swimming in a creek. He’s visiting from Ohio, where his mom, Beverly (Amy Adams) has taken him and his sister, Lindsay (Haley Bennett), to visit their kin. When some local boys taunt him and beat him up, Vance’s adult relatives smack