Hillbilly Elegy has all the elements of an Oscar-worthy film:an Academy Award-winning director in Ron Howard, a six-time nominated actress in Amy Adams, and a seven-time nominated actress in Glenn Close, a hard-hitting topic and a heavy dose of childhood nostalgia for the south of America. But somehow it just misses the mark.
The tone of the film doesn’t feel quite right, but it’s hard to put your finger on exactly why. Maybe it’s the central character who seems unlikeable and disinteresting despite his tragic past. Maybe it’s the hollowness of some of the monologues; such as Mamaw’s monologue about three kinds of people, ‘A good Terminator, a bad Terminator, and neutral’ which feels like it should be insightful, but is actually as deep as a paddling pool (what exactly is a neutral Terminator?). Or maybe it’s the fact that the film is based on a memoir written by J.D. Vance, who doesn’t technically belong to the Appalachian community which he appears to criticise.
The memoir, when it was written in 2016, was heralded for its insight into the white working-class of America who swung the vote for Donald Trump, and the cause of the shift. But after watching the film you feel none the wiser. The film avoids the more controversial elements of the memoir; by focusing on being uplifting it instead comes across completely ignorant to the nuances of white working-class poverty in America.
At times, the film even appears to blame the Appalachian people for their own poverty, telling stories of misuse of benefits, appearing to blame laziness for lack of success. Most of all, the film lacks authenticity. It is an outsider, performative perspective on the hillbilly people, which appears to blindly claim understanding. As Cassie Chambers Armstrong writes in The Atlantic “Hillbilly Elegy has to simplify the people and problems of Appalachia, because its decided to tell the same old pull-yourself-up-your-bootstraps narrative that so many of us reject”. In this way the film is not only tired, but it is dangerous in its assumption that poverty is due to the failure of individuals rather than the failing of the systems that are supposed to protect the very people they destroy.
The film isn’t terrible. Its best moments are those of nostalgia for summers in Kentucky among the hillbilly community, which portray a strong sense of togetherness and loyalty, traits which the Appalachians stand for. However, the intense scenes are hard to watch, and clash un-poetically against the sometimes boring scenes set in the present tense. It is a surface level film, presenting all the elements but refusing to tie them together. As a film about a man from a poor background it is sub-par, clunky, and dull, but as a film which is supposedly an interesting commentary on working class, white America, it falls extremely short of the mark.
2 stars
