Hillbilly Elegy (2020)

Though many have issues with the "poverty porn," Jack and I appreciated the high production values in this story of a lawyer's early life with his addict mother and forceful grandmother. Glenn Close is terrific as Mamaw, with a frizzy perm, jutting jaw, and oversized T-shirts. It's hard to like Gabriel Basso as the lawyer J.D. or Amy Adams as his mother Bev, because their characters are so unlikeable––brooding and shouting, respectively. Freida Pinto plays J.D.'s patient girlfriend in the city. The cast is huge.

Ron Howard directs from Vanessa Taylor's adaptation of J.D. Vance's 2016 best-selling memoir. The book and the movie infuriated many people, not just poor and/or Appalachian folk. And the critics have savaged the movie. See below.

The lovely folk music is by Hans Zimmer and David Fleming, which I'm streaming with my subscription to Apple Music. You can listen free on Spotify.

The makeup department took great pains to get Close and Adams to look like Vance's actual grandmother and mother, as shown at the end. 

Basso was last blogged for Super 8, Adams for Vice (Oscar-nomninated), Close for The Wife (Oscar-nominated), Pinto for Rise of the Planet of the Apes, Howard for Solo: A Star Wars Story, Taylor for The Shape of Water (Oscar-nominated), and Zimmer for Widows.

Rotten Tomatoes' critics hated it, averaging 26%, but its audiences liked it just fine, at 86. We got what we expected from a Ron Hoard joint and didn't hate streaming it on Netflix December 5.