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(Journalist)
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Hillbilly Elegy, JD Vance’s bestselling memoir on the struggles of poor white communities, was heralded as a must-read for understanding the political divide in America when it was released in 2016. Hillbilly Elegy, the new film adaptation of Netflix, written by The shape of water‘s Vanessa Taylor and directed by Ron Howard, is “a different animal, and surprisingly terrible,” writes Alissa Wilkinson to Vox. Four deadly eliminations:
- It is “perhaps the worst movie I have seen in years,” writes Wilkinson. “It’s in an entertaining Hollywood way, a rich person’s idea of what it is to be a poor person.” Glenn Close and Amy Adams’ performances “feel weirdly theatrical”. “‘Aren’t these people crazy ?!’ he seems to be saying: “How exotic! And yet, they are humans like you and me! “” Writes Wilkinson. “He removes Vance’s socio-political commentary entirely.”
- To say it’s a rich version of what the poor go through “can give it too much credit – even a rich person would notice how other factors like race and politics maintain these cycles generation after generation,” David Fear writes at Rolling stone. “It’s just a poverty class cosplay, a pantomime of what people derisively call the ‘white trash’ triumph and tragedy being sold as high-profile drama.
- It’s “almost ridiculously bad,” according to Michael O’Sullivan at Washington post, which gives the film 1.5 out of four stars. He notes that the film seems to suggest that Yale Law School graduate Vance was successful because he was a persistent and self-sufficient anomaly. “Yet those same values don’t seem to have saved many members of his family – or, frankly, the greater Rust Belt community.”
- Clarisse Loughrey also takes issue with the film’s idea that what separates Vance’s fate from that of his mother, a heroin addict, “is purely down to personal choice.” He exposes “a filmmaker who believes that a positive attitude alone can fix the world,” writes Loughrey at Independent. And “in the hands of serial sentimentalist Ron Howard, Hillbilly Elegy feels incredibly irresponsible. “
The film is currently screened in certain theaters. It will be released on Netflix on November 24. (Read more stories from movie reviews.)
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