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Hillbilly Elegy
Despite strong direction from Oscar winner Ron Howard and some powerhouse performances, the 2020 docudrama Hillbilly Elegy promises a very special look at family sensibilities in an exclusive culture, but ends up degenerating into an all-familiar tale of family dysfunction and addiction.
This fact based story begins as a Yale law student named JD Vance is trying to get into a graduate program when he gets a phone call from his hometown in the backwoods of Kentucky informing him that his mother has overdosed and has been hospitalized. As JD travels back home to tend to his mother, the story also flashes back to the toxic relationship he had with his mother as a teenager.
Vanessa Taylor's screenplay, based on the real Vance's memoirs, initially seems to be presenting a realistic peek into a subculture whose only exposure to us prior to this was The Beverly Hillbillies. After a beautifully scenic introduction to this very tight community where everybody knows everybody, the story cleverly alternates between a look at young JD's troubled relationship with his drug addicted mother Bev, and adult JD trying to help his mother start over again.
With a strong assist from film editor James Wilcox, Ron Howard does an exemplary job of moving back and forth between JD's constantly troubled teenage years and his adult life of establishing a law career. Unfortunately, with the title of the film and after the opening, we're expecting a specific look at a US subculture that eventually becomes a another story of addiction and family dysfunction, though it never gets boring.
Howard has mounted this story with great care and, as always, gets solid performances from his cast, led by six-time Oscar nominee Amy Adams as the very damaged Bev and eight-time nominee Glenn Close as her mother, a fascinating performance devoid of all glamour that has earned Close a ninth nomination. Owen Asztalos is also remarkable as young JD. It wasn't what I really expected, but it will hold viewer attention and Adams and Close deliver as the always do.
Despite strong direction from Oscar winner Ron Howard and some powerhouse performances, the 2020 docudrama Hillbilly Elegy promises a very special look at family sensibilities in an exclusive culture, but ends up degenerating into an all-familiar tale of family dysfunction and addiction.
This fact based story begins as a Yale law student named JD Vance is trying to get into a graduate program when he gets a phone call from his hometown in the backwoods of Kentucky informing him that his mother has overdosed and has been hospitalized. As JD travels back home to tend to his mother, the story also flashes back to the toxic relationship he had with his mother as a teenager.
Vanessa Taylor's screenplay, based on the real Vance's memoirs, initially seems to be presenting a realistic peek into a subculture whose only exposure to us prior to this was The Beverly Hillbillies. After a beautifully scenic introduction to this very tight community where everybody knows everybody, the story cleverly alternates between a look at young JD's troubled relationship with his drug addicted mother Bev, and adult JD trying to help his mother start over again.
With a strong assist from film editor James Wilcox, Ron Howard does an exemplary job of moving back and forth between JD's constantly troubled teenage years and his adult life of establishing a law career. Unfortunately, with the title of the film and after the opening, we're expecting a specific look at a US subculture that eventually becomes a another story of addiction and family dysfunction, though it never gets boring.
Howard has mounted this story with great care and, as always, gets solid performances from his cast, led by six-time Oscar nominee Amy Adams as the very damaged Bev and eight-time nominee Glenn Close as her mother, a fascinating performance devoid of all glamour that has earned Close a ninth nomination. Owen Asztalos is also remarkable as young JD. It wasn't what I really expected, but it will hold viewer attention and Adams and Close deliver as the always do.