Hillbilly Elegy

Hillbilly Elegy
Starring Amy Adams, Glenn Close, Gabriel Basso, Owen Asztalos
Directed by Ron Howard

The family dynamic is a forever changing thing, and something that varies greatly from person to person.  Some people have the picture perfect Americana family with loving parents, a two-story house, a white picket fence, and a dog.  Others have only one parent in the picture, living from paycheck to paycheck, and struggling to make the basic ends meet.  Then there's those whose family totally abandoned them, and they've relied on their friends to be their real family.  There's also those dysfunctional families who, despite being totally dangerous to each other, manage to stick it out together and hold true to the value that family is everything.  "Hillbilly Elegy" focuses on just such a family, a film based off the memoirs of J.D. Vance, who grew up in a small hillbilly town in southern Ohio and managed to work his way to Yale Law School, all the while remembering his tumultuous upbringing and the trials and tribulations that made him the man he is today, set out to create a positive family legacy.

In 1997, young J.D. (Owen Asztalos) lives with his nurse mother Bev (Amy Adams), who's become addicted to drugs and suffers from severe mental distress.  J.D.'s sister Lindsay (Haley Bennett) receives the brunt of Bev's attacks, but J.D. isn't left unscathed either, most notably during a tense confrontation on the road where Bev almost purposely kills them, leading him to find salvation with a stranger who calls the police to charge Bev with domestic abuse.

Before Bev could be taken away, the remaining family unit arrives - Lindsay, Bev's mother Mamaw (Glenn Close), and father Papaw (Bo Hopkins), and instead of sending his mother to prison, J.D. lies and says nothing happened.  Back home, Bev's antics grow more and more dangerous, and after tragic family events, she spirals downward into a dark world of drugs and poor life choices, culminating in Mamaw intervening and taking J.D. to live with her - but her own life is far from perfect.

In 2011, J.D. (Gabriel Basso) is now a successful Yale Law School student, and has a lovely girlfriend named Usha (Freida Pinto), and is about to find an internship at a law firm when Lindsay calls - Bev has overdosed on heroin, and the hospital isn't going to keep her there.  Facing his own future or his past, J.D. decides to head back to Middletown, Ohio, to help his addicted mother, and faces the memories of the past.

"Hillbilly Elegy" is a deeply personal, wonderfully executed film based off the real life story of an average guy who gathered what he went through in life to form a real future for himself, and I'm basing my review on the film itself, and not the memoir - because I never read it, and I understand that there's always something lost in the novel-to-film translation.  The film has received a lot of negative criticism, and I honestly don't understand the hate.  I was drawn in from the start, and the performances, the story, and the morals taught through fire resonated with me in such a way I found myself teary-eyed by the end of it.  I'm a sucker for a real life story, and J.D. Vance's story is anything but harrowing.

There's a section of America that most people never understand, and that's the world of the white working class society of Appalachia, whom many refer to as "hillbillies"  I feel that director Ron Howard perfectly encapsulated what it means to be a hillbilly with the setting of the film, and how the characters interact with each other.  These country folk are diehard committed to the family unit, no matter how dysfunctional they can be.  They don't give up on one another, they can argue and fight, but in the end they know that they're all they have.  It's not the most ideal situation (such as when Bev attacks her son and he doesn't press charges because the rest of the family is staring at him intently), but they hold to the family unit above all else.  When a death occurs in the family, the entire townsfolk stand outside the caravan and take off their hats to show respect, something J.D. doesn't understand at the time, but Mamaw says it perfectly: "they respect their dead."

You feel drawn into this family from the get-go, and obviously it's no picture-perfect painting.  We never really know what happened to J.D.'s father, but we see how riotous his mother can be.  Bev clearly has some mental issues she needs to deal with, as she lashes out at her son and daughter, and spirals into a world of drug use after working at a hospital.  You see that she has the world on her shoulders, and it's collapsing on top of her, and she can't find a proper way to deal with her growing suffering, so she takes it out on her children.  Again, however, this is far from who she is entirely.  When J.D. is attacked by a group of kids, Bev is the first one to say that she'll kill them, and she's fiercely protective and caring when she needs to be. 

Bev's complexity is due in no small part to Amy Adams's stellar performance.  This six-time Oscar nominee pulls out all the stops to transform herself into Bev in every way, shape, and form, and is easily one of her most compelling performances.  You see the hurt, the anger, and the depression in her eyes as she fights a losing battle against drug use, and you feel the sheer amount of weight that she's trying to maintain despite enduring several hardships that she's mostly responsible for. 

Likewise, the headstrong Mamaw has her own flaws as well - chronic smoker, dealing with past abusive relationships, and brazenly blunt - but there's no doubt that she loves her family and serves as the crazy glue that holds them together.  She doesn't take gruff, and although frail in appearance, is a lion when it comes to her family. 

Seven-time Oscar nominee Glenn Close absolutely dissolves into the role of Mamaw, and her only recognizable feature is her stunning eyes, which tell a story all their own.  Through the makeup, wig, and huge glasses (which actually belonged to the real Mamaw), Glenn Close relies on her decades of acting talent to bring Mamaw to the big screen in a big way.  As I said earlier, she appears as a frail, hunched over woman, but the fire inside of her is undeniable.  She makes mistakes as well, especially when it comes to hiding Bev's addiction, but there's no doubt that she loves her family unconditionally. 

The role of J.D. is split between his older and younger self, and usually the older self gets very little to do other than serve as a framing device for the events of the past, but here Gabriel Basso gets more to work with as he returns home despite having an interview that could change his life forever.  Seeing how he struggles with loving his mother and being there for his family as an adult is heartbreaking, and there's several moments where Basso truly shines and we see J.D.'s undying devotion to his family despite everything that happened to him.  As his younger self, Owen Astalos has much more to do, and delivers perfectly, as we see him struggling with his mother's nearly-constant beatdowns along with Mamaw's strength and love, and we see how these events shaped him into being the man he was later on - a true pick yourself up by your bootstraps person you ever did meet.

Many people criticize the film for being too bland, glossy, and hollow, but I didn't see any of that.  What I saw was an unflinching look at a family that's not perfect, but maintains their love and bond through the hardest times as they face addiction and abuse told through the eyes of spectacular A-list actors who give their all to the project.  If it's just an Oscar-bait film designed to tug at the heartstrings for a false emotional resonance, I didn't see it - but then again maybe that makes me a fool, and if so, I'm a proud fool.

Delivering stellar performances set against the backdrop of white collar Americana, "Hillbilly Elegy" shows the bonds of family can't be easily broken, even when the family is dysfunctional and dangerous, there's still an undying love and commitment to them that shapes who you become for good or bad.

The Score: A+