Now that the 2024 Republican presidential ticket is finalized, with Donald Trump having tapped Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance as his running mate, expect Vance’s 2018 memoir Hillbilly Elegy — which Netflix adapted into an original movie in 2020, directed by Ron Howard — to garner renewed interest.
Obviously, making time to stream a specific Netflix movie ought to be nowhere close to the top priority during an election season, when voters should instead be focused on carefully weighing the pros and cons of platforms and policies. Having said that, the interesting thing about Hillbilly Elegy, which stars Glenn Close and Amy Adams, is that it’s kind of an extension of Trump’s newly announced Veep pick, and is at least somewhat useful in terms of opening a window into Vance’s worldview — particularly in terms of how he views the kinds of voters Trump will be directly appealing to.
Vance’s memoir tells the story of how his grandparents in postwar America were “dirt poor and in love,” and how they moved from Kentucky’s Appalachia region to Ohio in an attempt to outrun the poverty all around them. They raised a middle-class family, and one of their grandchildren (Vance) would go on to graduate from Yale Law School.
As Hillbilly Elegy plays out, however, the reader — and viewers of the Netflix adaptation — come to see how one family member after another grapples with the demands of middle-class life. And how some of them were never able to extricate themselves from the encumbrances of alcoholism and poverty.
In the Netflix adaptation, Vance is portrayed by Gabriel Basso (who would go on to star in the blockbuster Netflix series The Night Agent). Adams plays Bev, his mother who struggles with addiction, while Vance’s resilient and iron-willed grandmother is played by Close.
The controversy
Both the book and film version of Hillbilly Elegy, it should be noted, are also not without controversy and criticism.
It’s especially important to point that out — because, again, the story’s controversy speaks to a worldview that will be important for both supporters and opponents of the Republican presidential ticket, which now includes Vance, to understand.
In general terms, Vance’s memoir drew criticism over the perception that it relied on and perpetuated stereotypes and generalizations of white working-class Americans. And that it also placed undue blame on individual choice as a factor behind systemic and generational issues, like poverty. A feature in The Atlantic from 2021, titled “The Moral Collapse of J.D. Vance,” has more detail on these points.
Overall, my suspicion is that because the movie was released during the first Covid pandemic year, it probably didn’t get the attention it would have received otherwise. Now, for obvious reasons, it definitely will.
