Glenn Close and Amy Adams look lost in Ron Howard’s all-over-the-place biopic.
Hillbilly Elegyis two movies, one laughably bad and one boringly bad.
Meanwhile, in the ’90s, teen J.D.
Glenn Close as Mamaw in ‘Hillbilly Elegy’.Credit: Lacey Terrell/NETFLIX
The opening scene finds young J.D.
in Kentucky, his family’s ancestral home.
It’s the opposite of authentic, but you don’t go to aRon Howardmovie for the evocative atmosphere.
Then there’s an awkward attempt to crosscut J.D.
Citywide, hope’s all gone by J.D.
Yet everything goes wrong in the execution.
Basso looks like what would happen if Archie Andrews spent ten years pushing the torture wheel fromConan the Barbarian.
The Ivy League is an awful place full of constant affront to J.D.
And yet, the dangling promise of a high-paying law gig is the entire plot engine.
Weird flex, but okay.
finds his mom recovering from an overdose.
She has no insurance, maybe nowhere to live.
“Welcome home!”
’s long-suffering sister (Haley Bennett) with weary irony.
A line like that ought to be in the third scene of a movie.
Instead, it’s 40 minutes into a two-hour runtime.
Playing a drug addict is tricky.
There’s no delicacy here, just dialogue that’s limp when it isn’t hilarious.
’s stepbrother actually asks him “Wanna get high?”
cautions that weed is a gateway drug.
And then there is Mamaw.
Somehow that was a subtler role than whatever she’s doing here.
Mamaw has the one-liners (“I don’t give a rat fart what you’re smoking!")
and does a full-blown “Hasta la vista!”
She’s supposed to be funny and strong, full of truth-bombs.
Humanity: That’s one thing missing fromHillbilly Elegy, and it’s missing entirely.
Actual triumphs of spirit are hacked to pieces or left out.
At one point, young J.D.
Closing chyrons explain that Bev got clean.
Would’ve been interesting to see that, but then we might’ve missed J.D.
I didn’t read Vance’s book, and I hope the problem is in the adaptation.
(Though: The awful narration sounds ripped from the page.)
Howard never works in that cultural register, anyways.
Cinematically speaking, his most profound social statement is that NASA was cool when he was young.
Some point has been missed.
This is a violent, sorrowful tale bent awkwardly into moving-biopic shape.
Death, addiction, and straight-up poverty keep assaulting J.D.
’s family, claiming one victim after another with slasher inevitability.
Howard thinks he’s making an inspirational tale.
He doesn’t realize it’s an American horror story.GRADE: F
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