Ron Howard’s misjudged adaptation of JD Vance’s bestselling memoir is both histrionic and boring – and too shallow to act as social commentary
By now, a week after its release on Netflix, a critical consensus has emerged: Hillbilly Elegy is a bad movie, maybe one of the worst of the year. That hasn’t stopped the film, also released in select theaters on 11 November, from becoming popular; it’s one of the 10 most watched Netflix films of the past week, probably in part due to name recognition of its source material, the 2016 memoir of the same name by JD Vance, and in part thanks to two movie stars, Amy Adams and Glenn Close, who don prosthetics and mom overalls for roles of capital-S struggle in what, as some have noted, is the worst kind of Oscar bait.
Related: Hillbilly Elegy review – Glenn Close’s grouchy gran saves the day
