After buying the rights to Vance's book in 2017, Imagine Entertainment announced Howard as the film's director. In 2019, Netflix acquired the distribution rights in January, much of the cast joined in April and filming took place from June through August in Georgia and Ohio.
The film is presented in a nonlinear narrative. The following is a linear summary of the plot.
JD Vance looks back on his childhood in Middletown, Ohio, where he was raised by his mother Beverly "Bev" and her parents from Jackson, Kentucky. In 1997, young JD and his older sister, Lindsay, struggle with their mother's drug addiction and unstable behavior.
After an argument while driving, Bev threatens to crash the car before attacking JD, causing him to flee to a nearby house. After Bev breaks through the door to drag JD away; he lies to keep her from being arrested. Soon afterwards, Bev's father, Papaw, dies. She is later fired for her erratic behavior and for stealing pills during work hours, causing her to have a violent breakdown in front of the entire neighborhood. After a series of boyfriends, Bev marries her new boss but is unable to detox.
JD often spends time with his maternal grandmother, Bonnie "Mamaw" Vance, who struggles to keep her daughter in line. She reluctantly convinces JD to give his mother clean urine for a drug test to keep her job. Mamaw is later hospitalized with pneumonia while JD's grades start to slip as he begins acting out with his new stepbrother and their friends. JD joins them in drinking, drugs, and vandalism, before they crash Mamaw's car. Lindsay informs Mamaw, who discharges herself from the hospital and takes in JD to live with her.
Stern but well-meaning, Mamaw attempts to curb JD's outbursts after he is caught shoplifting a graphing calculator for school, warning JD that someone will need to care for the family when she is gone, and that he has the choice to make something of himself. Realizing how much Mamaw is struggling to support them both, JD finds a job and begins to excel in school, later joining the United States Marine Corps. He returns home when Mamaw dies, before serving in Iraq. After his tour, JD uses the "new GI bill" to attend college.
In 2011, an adult JD works three jobs to put himself through Yale Law School. He hopes to secure a summer internship in Washington, D.C., with his girlfriend Usha, but Lindsay calls him with the news that Bev has overdosed on heroin. Driving home to Middletown, JD struggles to find a rehab facility for his mother, and is offered a last chance for a job interview the following morning. Despite feeling overwhelmed, JD refuses Usha's offer to come and help.
Bev refuses to return to rehab, causing her most recent boyfriend to throw Bev out of his apartment. With Lindsay raising her own family, JD takes Bev to a motel, but discovers her using heroin in the bathroom. Wrestling the needle away from Bev, JD urges her not to give up, and leaves his mother with Lindsay as he departs for New Haven. He calls Usha, who keeps him company on the phone as he drives through the night. Surprising her in the morning, JD arrives in time for his interview.
An epilogue reveals that JD graduated from Yale and published his memoir. He and Usha married and had children, moving to Ohio to be near his family, including Lindsay and Bev, who has been sober for six years.
Imagine Entertainment won the rights to the memoir in an April 2017 auction, and Ron Howard decided to direct the film.[5] In February 2018, Vanessa Taylor was set to adapt the memoir into a screenplay.[6] In March 2018, Ron Howard was spotted at the Buckingham Coal Mine near Corning, Ohio, scouting possible locations in Perry County.[7] In October 2018 and March 2019, Howard was spotted in Middletown, Ohio, again scouting filming locations.[8][9]
Principal photography began on June 12, 2019, in Atlanta, Georgia,[16] and wrapped up on August 8, 2019, in Middletown, Ohio, after a 43-day shooting schedule. Several days of filming took place in the book's setting of Middletown, Ohio,[17] though much of the filming was done in Atlanta, Clayton, and Macon, Georgia, using the production code-name "IVAN".[18][19]Hans Zimmer and David Fleming composed the film's music.[20]
By January 2020, the film was in post-production.[21]
Release
Hillbilly Elegy began a limited theatrical release in the United States on November 11, 2020, then streamed on Netflix starting November 24.[22]
It was the most-watched film on the site on its first day of release, before finishing third in its debut weekend.[23]
Viewership for the film increased in 2024 after Donald Trump selected Vance as his vice presidential running mate.[24]
Reception and legacy
Critical response
Critical response to Hillbilly Elegy was "fairly negative", but the performances of its cast received praise.[25][26] On Rotten Tomatoes, 25% of 251 critics gave the film a positive review, with an average rating of 4.6/10. The website's critics consensus reads, "With the form of an awards-season hopeful but the soul of a bland melodrama, Hillbilly Elegy strands some very fine actors in the not-so-deep South."[27] According to Metacritic, which calculated a weighted average score of 38 out of 100 based on 43 critics, the film received "generally unfavorable reviews".[28]
Richard Roeper from the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film a perfect 4 out of 4 star rating, praising Adams's and Close's "exceptional work", describing Adams as a "tour de force" and Close as "masterful, screen-commanding, pitch-perfect."[29]
The Independent reported that the film was widely criticized for "perpetuating stereotypes about the poor".[30] Katie Rife of The A.V. Club called it "bootstrapping poverty porn" and said that it "reinforces the stereotypes it's meant to be illuminating."[31]
Owen Gleiberman of Variety wrote, "As long as Close is acting up an award-worthy storm (her performance is actually quite meticulous), Hillbilly Elegy is never less than alive. Amy Adams does some showpiece acting of her own, but as skillful as her performance is, she never gets us to look at Bev with pity and terror."[32] For IndieWire, David Ehrlich gave the film a "C−" and wrote "Hillbilly Elegy hinges on Mamaw's hope that she'll leave her family better off than she found them, and it's clear that Vance's story has fulfilled that wish almost as soon as this movie starts. But the process of watching him cut his losses and recommit to his own success is rendered in a way that it isn't just dramatically unsatisfying in the extreme, but also on the verge of sociopathic."[33]
Peter Travers of Good Morning America thought Close's performance was "sensational", but concluded, "With greater emphasis on simplicity instead of Hollywood showboating, Hillbilly Elegy might have been more than a missed opportunity."[34] In her positive review, Sandra Hall from The Sydney Morning Herald praised Howard's "high-end brand of commercial movie-making" and opined that he's "to be applauded just for inviting Close, with her wealth of imagination and technique, to give us everything she has."[35]
In September 2024, the film's director, Ron Howard, expressed disappointment and "surprise" over JD Vance's rhetoric and role as the 2024 United States vice presidential candidate for the Republican ticket, saying "we didn't talk a lot of politics when we were making the movie because I was interested in Vance's upbringing and that survival tale. That's what we mostly focused on. However, based on the conversations that we had during that time, I just have to say I'm very surprised and disappointed by much of the rhetoric that I'm reading and hearing. People do change, and I assume that's the case. When we spoke around the time that I knew him, he was not involved in politics or claimed to be particularly interested."[52][53]
Following Donald Trump's announcement that J.D. Vance would be his running mate, viewership of Hillbilly Elegy surged by 1,179% compared to the previous day.[54]
.png)
