Netflix’s ‘Hillbilly Elegy’ Fails To Explain White Evangelicals. Here’s Why It’s Still Worth Watching
Glenn Close as “Mamaw” with a young J.D. Vance in the movie adaptation of “Hillbilly Elegy.” Photo courtesy of Netflix.
(REVIEW) A preacher on a radio sermon talks about the steadfastness of God. Various people living in rundown homes and shacks in the middle of greenery listen. The preacher talks about the American Dream, and that those listening may feel injustice that they haven’t received it. “Let us hold faith not only in that God, but in ourselves and our character,” he said. He’s met every so often with an awed Amen.
The sermon is an audio overlay of rural Appalachia that begins “Hillbilly Elegy,” Netflix’s latest that released in theaters on Nov. 11 and was added to the streaming platform on Nov. 24.
It’s based on the 2016 memoir written by J.D. Vance with the same title. Both the book and the movie tell Vance’s story of what it’s like to grow up in Appalachia with a mother who’s a drug addict in serious poverty — and what it’s like to break the cycle by getting a good education and good job.
In it, religion — white evangelical Christianity — is only used as a trait to describe the group that has become a caricature of American culture people don’t understand. These people are from rural areas, whether it’s Appalachia, the Bible Belt, or any part of the Midwest; they’re also poor, involved in a trade like agriculture, conservative voters and evangelical Christians.
Only once does Vance mention his Mamaw's beliefs, while talking about letters she’d send him while he was in the military, though they have a larger place in the book. But that’s okay. It’s clear who the movie is trying to portray, and it can almost be assumed Vance and his family are at least pseudo-religious.
The movie was initially slated as an Oscar grab for both Amy Adams and Glenn Close — who play Vance’s mom and Mamaw, respectively. (This may be particularly the case for Close, who is a seven-time Oscar nominee but not yet a winner.)
But “Hillbilly Elegy” has been viscerally panned by critics across the board for a number of reasons.
Some say it’s less meaningful than the book because it stripped away any controversial political commentary; others say the book was awful to begin with and the movie is too much like it. Those in the second group have also complained about the character of J.D. Vance to begin with, displeased with the “pull-yourself-up-by-the-bootstraps” mentality he has. Vulture’s review even goes so far as to criticize every friendship or partnership Vance has formed with a conservative figure since his book was released.
That’s all well and good; for those who are really interested in knowing what growing up in Appalachia is like, there are more (and maybe even better) stories to pursue. But Vance’s story is the one that’s been chosen to portray a specific sentiment about this time and people. It resonated enough with the right people to create a Hollywoodized adaptation.
So what is the “Hillbilly Elegy” movie supposed to do?
The book, when it was released, served in part as a political explainer. Released around the time Trump was elected into office, confused voters went searching for answers: who are the voters who elected this guy? How could they do such a thing?
These are questions that lasted. Even as late as August of this year, the New York Times was trying to explain this group of white evangelical Trump supporters to its readers.
“Hillbilly Elegy” as a movie could have therefore been overly politicized — but it isn’t at all. It almost lacks politics entirely, and instead gives Adams and Close the chance to monologue relentlessly about family, hardship and the American Dream.
The movie features Vance in 2011 who is struggling to fit in at law school and must return home to take care of his mom the night before a big internship interview because she overdosed on heroin. It’s split with flashbacks to Vance’s childhood, when his mom dated a string of boyfriends and became increasingly abusive and neglectful.
It’s material that should make a phenomenal character study: not necessarily in Vance, but more in his mom and Mamaw, who do represent at least one aspect of living poor in a rural area.
It almost succeeds as a character study, too, but there’s more “telling” — in the form of those monologues — than there is “showing.” (To illustrate the abuse Vance’s mom Bev suffered as a daughter, we see a further flashback when Mamaw threatens to light her husband on fire if he comes home drunk again and does. Bev is the one who has to put out the fire.)
And the movie is dramatized so much it becomes boring and repetitive. There’s more yelling, fighting and injury than there is the parts of normal life that would offer a better portrait of this life.
At the end, “Hillbilly Elegy” feels like heartbreaking family portrait mixed with success story: Bev is six years sober, and Vance is married to the girlfriend he met at Yale.
For those who didn’t grow up in Appalachia, or as a white evangelical, or in near-poverty, the movie and the book may offer an insight into an unfamiliar lifestyle and upbringing. But it isn’t going to offer any definitive answers.
It isn’t trying to — and it’s better off for that.
Take the New York Times story which presumed to understand Trump voters with a determined finality. They failed. People in the community pushed back against what was said, and resented that they’d been lumped into an ideological group. Because it’s extremely difficult, if not impossible, to explain away a vote and entire way of life by narrowing that way of life down into one point of view.
“Hillbilly Elegy” isn’t worth the hate it’s gotten, as long as you don’t approach it with the mindset that it’ll solve all your problems or explain away every question you have about white evangelical Christians, people in Appalachia or Trump supporters. It won’t even come close.
It’s just the story of Vance’s family, who happens to be a family that fits this demographic. And — while not without its pitfalls — it tells this narrative of an American family fairly well.
“Hillbilly Elegy” is now streaming on Netflix.
Jillian Cheney is a Poynter-Koch fellow for Religion Unplugged who loves consuming good culture and writing about it. She also reports on American Protestantism and Evangelical Christianity. You can find her on Twitter @_jilliancheney.