Hillbilly Elegy: Movie Review

 

This is usually where I tell you the book was better than the movie and the director didn’t understand the real thrust of the book. But Hillbilly Elegy hits the mark in tone and substance and paints a sympathetic portrait of the struggle to escape circumstance.

 I read the book years ago and thought it was perfect for anyone raised in rough circumstance because the struggles are similar.  You can trace the problems of poor white America to the same problems of poor ___ insert ethnic identity group here. There are dramatic exceptions of course. White’s never faced discrimination on anywhere near the level of blacks (in particular) or Native Americans. The laws were specifically written to exclude them and deny them basic rights. But family breakdown and addiction aren’t the sole problems of one group. Hopelessness feeds on poverty and runs through poor communities like a main road, reminding everyone where the demarcation lies.

 Hillbilly Elegy is a one man’s story about escaping the essential setback of a broken family with one parent who is an addict and the other one who is out of the picture.

J.D Vance is a struggling law student at Yale trying to get an internship with a prestigious firm. Right about that time he gets a call about his mother who nearly overdosed on heroin. He needs to leave his fancy dinner and help his sister out. While he goes home we see flashbacks to his young life and the difficulties of growing up with an abusive mother (Amy Adams) and no father. As the most stable person in his life, his grandmother Mamaw (Glenn Close) pushes him to focus on his education.

The mistake people make with both the book and the movie is assuming it represents a culture or identity of poor whites. As a result the critics thought the portrayals of his mother and grandmother a little cliqued. Critics want to make every story an attack on some existing institution, the church, the government, the patriarchy. Hillbilly Elegy is great because it’s hopeful and doesn’t point fingers at institutions. It says “Life is tougher for some than others but with help and dedication you can overcome and achieve.” It’s a pro-American movie that accepts responsibility and proves that paths exist to leave behind that which holds you back.   

 J.D Vance tells the audience about his kin and lifestyle as he experienced it. I don’t believe he set out to write a book about hillbillies and their misunderstood lives. It’s really a tribute to his grandmother who, despite her limitations and nastiness, provided a stable environment from which to move forward. He moved forward thanks to her, but she only provided him a lift. He made a decision at some point to succeed and keep moving forward.  

There is a telling scene at the start of the movie. J.D. goes swimming just down the road from his uncle’s rural abode. The kids there dunk him in the water and try to hold him under. He fights with them of course but there too many. He is eventually rescued by his extended family and brought back to the house, bloodied and beaten. It’s a perfect picture of how a community (defined anyway you want) can hold us down. Vance struggles in high school with drugs and alcohol and partying with losers. His grandmother sees it and becomes his lifeline away from it. She also sees that J.D.’s mother can’t be the foundation for him, her frivolous lifestyle a recipe for destruction.

There is also a hint from the grandmother (Mamaw) of a failed experience with her own daughter Bev. We are reminded that Bev (J.D’s mother) was a promising student who was the salutatorian of her class and headed for better. This feels like a second chance for Mamaw to actually put past wrongs right. Her life as a mother was equally abusive and her kids saw their parents in countless domestic fights. Mamaw even set her kid’s drunk dad on fire! Here the film shows these abusive relationships as part of the deal in this community. I don’t believe it’s exclusive to white hillbillies and I don’t believe Vance was saying this either. 

It’s a great American story with great acting and a hopeful finish. Because of the personal responsibility ethic it gets low marks from the critics. I liked it and I recommend it.