Hillbilly Elegy

J.D. Vance is at law school, in the middle of interview season, when he hears his mother has overdosed again. He drives back to Ohio. The film moves between now and then: his mother's addiction, his grandmother's hardness and the coming apart of a family that moved from Kentucky to Ohio. Ron Howard directed. The source is J.D. Vance's memoir of the same name. Amy Adams plays the mother and Glenn Close plays the grandmother, Mamaw. Vanessa Taylor wrote the screenplay. It went out on Netflix in 2020. The reception was harsh. Rotten Tomatoes sits at 20 percent and Metacritic at 41. Critics called it arguably the worst film of Howard's career and said it saddled two of the finest actors around with cartoonish parts. The Los Angeles Times described it as an extended Oscar-clip montage in search of a larger purpose. It still drew two Academy Award nominations, for Makeup and Hairstyling and for Glenn Close as Best Supporting Actress. The same part also brought her a Razzie nomination, making her the third performer in history nominated for an Oscar and a Razzie for one performance, after Amy Irving for Yentl and James Coco for Only When I Laugh. Who it is for: viewers who want acting showcases and drama about addiction in a family. Who it is not for: anyone expecting the class argument of the book. The film drops the political frame entirely and reduces it to one family's story.