‘Hillbilly Elegy': Ron Howard Adapts's Dull Adaptation of Southern-Set Memoir [Review]

J.D. Vance’s bestselling memoir, “Hillbilly Elegy” is adapted to rigorous Oscar-bait effect by Oscar-nominee Vanessa Taylor (“The Shape of Water”). The result is the kind of big studio crowd-pleaser that used to be the norm in the ‘90s, but is now mocked by our meta generation.

Ron Howard, a consummate professional who’s been going at it as a director now for four decades, aims to add to his Oscar-nominated filmography that includes the likes of “Apollo 13,” “Frost/Nixon” “A Beautiful Mind,” “Rush” and “Cinderella Man.” Howard is Hollywood royalty at this point, and the Netflix-backed “Hillbilly Elegy,” a family story based on Vance’s upbringing in rural Ohio, is destined to tug at the hearts of mainstream viewers looking for a feel-good drama in these dire days of pandemic blues. The rest of us will roll our eyes in the sheer ridiculous amount of southern belt claptrap happening on-screen.

“Hillbilly Elegy” features a fierce mother-daughter rivalry, one etched in the blood of Appalachian hillbilly-dom. Amy Adams and Glenn Close play the duo and they deliver the goods — I wouldn’t be shocked if one, or even both, of these actresses, gets Oscar recognized come nomination time next Spring. Taking out the fact that this is very much a middle-of-the-road story, told in very middle-of-the-road fashion by Howard, this is absolutely an actress showcase; Adams and Close de-glam, so to speak, in performances that, compared to the movie they’re in, never feels hammy or over-the-top.

Playing family matriarch Mamaw, Close shows us the psychological interiors of her wounded character, a woman who fled Kentucky as a young girl with her physically abusive husband (Bo Hopkins) and raised her family in Southern Ohio. Her daughter, Bev (Adams), clearly scarred by her parents’ fighting and the rural hardknock upbringing in the Appalachian mountains, has to deal with her own demons as a grown woman, addicted to opioids and painkillers and continuously getting bailed out of trouble by her family. Her son, Yale law undergrad Vance, struggles to make sense of his childhood, haunted by the physical abuse he himself received at the hands of Bev, only to then go live with his Grandmother. Vance is played by two actors, teenager Owen Asztalos and 20-something Gabriel Basso.

Given the familiarly-delivered storytelling techniques, the small screen allure of Netflix is enhanced by Howard’s slick direction, and DP Maryse Alberti’s intimate camerawork (she’s actually a documentary filmmaker). This kind of accessible film, adapted from what many are calling a “conservative” novel, is the type of project that is purposely simplified for the viewer’s tastes. “Hillbilly Elegy” has nothing to say about the causes of addictions, economic strains, and familial dysfunction as much as it just asks the viewer to accept the events as they are. It’s a well-meant story from Howard, but this is a story about recovery and redemption without the fully-fleshed details to make us care. [C+]