Hillbilly Elegy

Hillbilly Elegy
Official release poster
Directed by	Ron Howard
Produced by	Brian Grazer Ron Howard Karen Lunder
Screenplay by	Vanessa Taylor
Based on	‘’Hillbilly Elegy’’ by JD Vance
Starring	Amy Adams Glenn Close
Music by	Hans Zimmer David Fleming
Cinematography	Maryse Alberti
Edited by	James D. Wilcox
Studio	Imagine Entertainment
Distributed by	Netflix
Running time	115 minutes
Country	United States
Filming location	United States
Language	English
Rating
Budget	$45 million
Box office	$38,852

Hillbilly Elegy is a 2020 American drama film directed by Ron Howard from a screenplay by Vanessa Taylor, based on the 2016 memoir of the same name by JD Vance. The film stars Amy Adams and Glenn Close, and features Gabriel Basso, Haley Bennett, Freida Pinto, Bo Hopkins in his final film appearance, and Owen Asztalos.

After buying the rights to Vance's book in 2017, Imagine Entertainment announced Howard as the film's director. In 2019, Netflix acquired the distribution rights in January, much of the cast joined in April and filming took place from June through August in Georgia and Ohio.

Hillbilly Elegy was released in select cinemas on November 11, 2020, before its streaming release on November 24, 2020, by Netflix, to a mostly negative reception from critics. It received three nominations at the Golden Raspberry Awards: Worst Director for Howard, Worst Screenplay for Taylor, and Worst Supporting Actress for Close. Close was also nominated for Best Supporting Actress at the Academy Awards, the Golden Globe Awards, and Screen Actors Guild Awards, while Adams's performance earned her a Screen Actors Guild Award nomination for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Leading Role.

Plot

JD Vance looks back on his childhood in Middletown, Ohio, where he was raised by his mother Beverly "Bev" and her parents from Jackson, Kentucky. In 1997, young JD and his older sister, Lindsay, struggle with their mother's drug addiction and unstable behavior.

After an argument while driving, Bev threatens to crash the car before attacking JD, causing him to flee to a nearby house. After Bev breaks through the door to drag JD away; he lies to keep her from being arrested. Soon afterwards, Bev's father, Papaw, dies. She is later fired for her erratic behavior and for stealing pills during work hours, causing her to have a violent breakdown in front of the entire neighborhood. After a series of boyfriends, Bev marries her new boss but is unable to detox.

JD often spends time with his maternal grandmother, Bonnie "Mamaw" Vance, who struggles to keep her daughter in line. She reluctantly convinces JD to give his mother clean urine for a drug test to keep her job. Mamaw is later hospitalized with pneumonia while JD's grades start to slip as he begins acting out with his new stepbrother and their friends. JD joins them in drinking, drugs, and vandalism, before they crash Mamaw's car. Lindsay informs Mamaw, who discharges herself from the hospital and takes in JD to live with her.

Stern but well-meaning, Mamaw attempts to curb JD's outbursts after he is caught shoplifting a graphing calculator for school, warning JD that someone will need to care for the family when she is gone, and that he has the choice to make something of himself. Realizing how much Mamaw is struggling to support them both, JD finds a job and begins to excel in school, later joining the United States Marine Corps. He returns home when Mamaw dies, before he serves in Iraq. After his tour, JD uses the “new GI bill” to attend college.

In 2011, an adult JD works three jobs to put himself through Yale Law School. He hopes to secure a summer internship in Washington, D.C., with his girlfriend Usha, but Lindsay calls him with the news that Bev has overdosed on heroin. Driving home to Middletown, JD struggles to find a rehab facility for his mother, and is offered a last chance for a job interview the following morning. Despite feeling overwhelmed, JD refuses Usha's offer to come and help.

Bev refuses to return to rehab, causing her most recent boyfriend to throw Bev out of his apartment. With Lindsay raising her own family, JD takes Bev to a motel, but discovers her using heroin in the bathroom. Wrestling the needle away from Bev, JD urges her not to give up, and leaves his mother with Lindsay as he departs for New Haven. He calls Usha, who keeps him company on the phone as he drives through the night. Surprising her in the morning, JD arrives in time for his interview.

An epilogue reveals that JD graduated from Yale and published his memoir. He and Usha married and had children, moving to Ohio to be near his family, including Lindsay and Bev, who has been sober for 6 years.

Cast

• Amy Adams as Beverly "Bev" Vance, JD's mother
  • Tierney Smith as young Beverly "Bev" Vance
• Glenn Close as Bonnie "Mamaw" Vance, JD's grandmother
  • Sunny Mabrey as young Bonnie "Mamaw" Vance
• Gabriel Basso as JD Vance
  • Owen Asztalos as young JD Vance
• Haley Bennett as Lindsay Vance, JD's sister
• Freida Pinto as Usha Vance, JD's girlfriend
• Bo Hopkins as Papaw Vance, JD's grandfather

Release

Hillbilly Elegy began a limited theatrical release in the United States on November 11, 2020, then streamed on Netflix starting November 24.

It was the most-watched film on the site on its first day of release, before finishing third in its debut weekend.

Viewership for the film increased in 2024 after Vance was picked as Donald Trump's running mate.

Reception

Critical response

Critical response to Hillbilly Elegy was "fairly negative", but the performances of its cast received some praise. On Rotten Tomatoes, of critics gave the film a positive review, with an average rating of . The website's critics consensus reads, "With the form of an awards-season hopeful but the soul of a bland melodrama, Hillbilly Elegy strands some very fine actors in the not-so-deep South." According to Metacritic, which calculated a weighted average score of 38 out of 100 based on 43 critics, the film received "generally unfavorable reviews".

The Independent reported that the film was widely criticized for "perpetuating stereotypes about the poor". Katie Rife of The A.V. Club called it "bootstrapping poverty porn" and said that it "reinforces the stereotypes it's meant to be illuminating."

Owen Gleiberman of Variety wrote, "As long as Close is acting up an award-worthy storm (her performance is actually quite meticulous), Hillbilly Elegy is never less than alive. Amy Adams does some showpiece acting of her own, but as skillful as her performance is, she never gets us to look at Bev with pity and terror." For IndieWire, David Ehrlich gave the film a "C−" and wrote "Hillbilly Elegy hinges on Mamaw's hope that she'll leave her family better off than she found them, and it's clear that Vance's story has fulfilled that wish almost as soon as this movie starts. But the process of watching him cut his losses and recommit to his own success is rendered in a way that it isn't just dramatically unsatisfying in the extreme, but also on the verge of sociopathic."

Peter Travers of Good Morning America thought Close's performance was "sensational", but concluded, "With greater emphasis on simplicity instead of Hollywood showboating, Hillbilly Elegy might have been more than a missed opportunity." In her positive review, Sandra Hall from The Sydney Morning Herald praised Howard's "high-end brand of commercial movie-making" and opined that he's "to be applauded just for inviting Close, with her wealth of imagination and technique, to give us everything she has." Richard Roeper from the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film a perfect 4 out of 4 star rating, praising Adams' and Close's "exceptional work", describing Adams as a "tour de force" and Close as "masterful, screen-commanding, pitch-perfect."

Accolades

Glenn Close became the third performer in history to be nominated for an Academy Award and a Golden Raspberry Award for the same performance.

Year	Award	Category	Recipient(s)	Result	Template:Ref heading
Template:Center	San Francisco International Film Festival	Award for Acting	Glenn Close	Won
Template:Center	AARP Movies for Grownup Awards	Best Supporting Actress		Nominated
		Best Intergenerational Film	Hillbilly Elegy	Nominated
	Academy Awards	Best Supporting Actress	Glenn Close	Nominated
		Best Makeup and Hairstyling	Eryn Krueger Mekash, Patricia Dehaney and Matthew W. Mungle	Nominated
	Artios Awards	Feature Big Budget – Drama	Carmen Cuba, Tara Feldstein Bennett, Chase Paris, D. Lynn Meyers and Judith Sunga	Nominated
	British Academy Film Awards	Best Makeup and Hair	Eryn Krueger Mekash, Patricia Dehaney and Matthew Mungle	Nominated
	Critics' Choice Awards	Best Supporting Actress	Glenn Close	Nominated
		Best Hair & Makeup	Eryn Krueger Mekash, Patricia Dehaney and Matthew Mungle	Nominated
	Detroit Film Critics Society Awards	Best Supporting Actress	Glenn Close	Nominated
	Gold Derby Awards	Supporting Actress		Nominated
		Makeup/Hair	Eryn Krueger Mekash, Patricia Dehaney and Matthew Mungle	Nominated
	Golden Globe Awards	Best Supporting Actress – Motion Picture	Glenn Close	Nominated
	Golden Raspberry Awards	Worst Director	Ron Howard	Nominated
		Worst Supporting Actress	Glenn Close	Nominated
		Worst Screenplay	Vanessa Taylor; Based on the memoir by JD Vance	Nominated
	Hollywood Critics Association Awards	Best Supporting Actress	Glenn Close	Nominated
		Best Hair & Makeup	Eryn Krueger Mekash, Patricia Dehaney and Matthew Mungle	Nominated
	Make-Up Artists and Hair Stylists Guild Awards	Best Period and/or Character Make-Up in a Feature-Length Motion Picture	Eryn Krueger Mekash, Jamie Hess, Devin Morales and Jessica Gambardella	Nominated
		Best Period and/or Character Hair Styling in a Feature-Length Motion Picture	Patricia Dehaney, Tony Ward, Martial Corneville and Stacey Butterworth	Nominated
		Best Special Make-Up Effects in a Feature-Length Motion Picture	Eryn Krueger Mekash, Matthew Mungle and Jamie Hess	Nominated
	Screen Actors Guild Awards	Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Leading Role	Amy Adams	Nominated
		Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Supporting Role	Glenn Close	Nominated
	Set Decorators Society of America Awards	Best Achievement in Décor/Design of a Contemporary Feature Film	Merissa Lombardo and Molly Hughes	Nominated

External links

• Hillbilly Elegy at IMDb
• Hillbilly Elegy at Rotten Tomatoes