Hillbilly Elegy (Ron Howard, 2020)

[therewillbeblus]

Fun fact, Zellweger is the lead photo on the “Academy Award for Best Actress” Wikipedia page. So she’s pretty much literally the dictionary definition of a Best Actress winner.

I assume that's because she's the most recent winner

Yeah this is pretty standard, the most recent winner gets their pic representing the award

[aox]

I remember Cold Mountain being a pretty big hit at the time. I think I have seen it twice though I am pretty indifferent towards it. The Iron Lady seems like a pretty good call. A much better example than my previous selection of Judy. And thanks, Dom for the deep history. It reminded me of the Michael Caine/Jaws 4 story.

[aox]

Just came back from this ... it was, possibly, the most miserable film I've ever seen. I don't even know that I'd say it's a bad move. It's not great, but it's passable. But man is it a miserable slog. I guess you're supposed to pity these characters, and hope they climb out of their pitiful circumstances, but I didn't. I didn't care. I hated the characters, I hated watching and I just wanted it to be over (but I've never walked out of a movie and wasn't about to start tonight). And the hate started pretty goddamn early, and only lessened marginally by the end. You have to assume that Amy Adams and Glenn Close were attracted to the material as Oscar bait, but if so, Adams is going to keep waiting. It's a nothing part that didn't show any real skill or talent. Close ... maybe. Especially in this weird award season, Close could get nominated and maybe even get that "we owe her" win. She has a few decent moments in the last half hour, so you never know. But this movie as a whole? Look, I can appreciate a good film about miserable people (Monster's Ball would be a good analogy here); but Hillbilly Elegy is just audience torture.

(I haven't been to a bar or restaurant since February, and the only public indoor places I go are the two single screen independent theatres in Ottawa, both limited to 50 people (out of 325 and 650 seats respectively). I feel safer there than going to the supermarket. But if by some small chance I managed to catch COVID-19 tonight from seeing Hillbilly fucking Elegy, I'm taking it as a sign from a higher power)

Best wishes.

Having just finished this, I am basically in agreeance with you. Close is the only actor here who has any moments, but that goodwill is somehow squandered usually within 5 minutes of that moment with her completely hamming it up. The rest of the cast and performances are pretty dismal and the whole thing is just a collection of awkward cringeworthy scenes and melodrama. TWBB, you are going to "love" the depictions of addiction here.

My understanding of the book (which I haven't read) is that it is political, or at least attempts to grapple with sociological issues. However, I can tell after watching this that Howard basically neutered what I have read made the book noteworthy, which is a shame. An even less competent director who isn't so risk adverse might have pulled something interesting out this source material.

With that said, and in jest, since there were only "three movies released this year", I can see this joining the ranks of Ben Hur/Titanic/LOTR, but with 13 nominations and 12 wins (Close will probably lose).

[whaleallright]

[Aunt Peg]

Terrible film but given it was directed by Ron Howard that didn't surprise me. Got to give credit though to the casting of Glenn Close and particularly Amy Adams as they certainly looked as close as you could get to what the real people looked like.

[barryconvex]

Just came back from this ... it was, possibly, the most miserable film I've ever seen. I don't even know that I'd say it's a bad move. It's not great, but it's passable. But man is it a miserable slog. I guess you're supposed to pity these characters, and hope they climb out of their pitiful circumstances, but I didn't. I didn't care. I hated the characters, I hated watching and I just wanted it to be over (but I've never walked out of a movie and wasn't about to start tonight). And the hate started pretty goddamn early, and only lessened marginally by the end. You have to assume that Amy Adams and Glenn Close were attracted to the material as Oscar bait, but if so, Adams is going to keep waiting. It's a nothing part that didn't show any real skill or talent. Close ... maybe. Especially in this weird award season, Close could get nominated and maybe even get that "we owe her" win. She has a few decent moments in the last half hour, so you never know. But this movie as a whole? Look, I can appreciate a good film about miserable people (Monster's Ball would be a good analogy here); but Hillbilly Elegy is just audience torture.

(I haven't been to a bar or restaurant since February, and the only public indoor places I go are the two single screen independent theatres in Ottawa, both limited to 50 people (out of 325 and 650 seats respectively). I feel safer there than going to the supermarket. But if by some small chance I managed to catch COVID-19 tonight from seeing Hillbilly fucking Elegy, I'm taking it as a sign from a higher power)

This was my reaction as well, pretty much to the letter. I hated this movie as much as any movie I've ever hated, I hated the lead character and the guy playing him, hated Glenn Close's character, and hated- for the first time ever- the character played by my favorite living actress, Amy Adams. And Ron Howard...ugh, I don't even want to get into it but I'll never forgive him for this abysmal piece of shit.

[therewillbeblus]

I decided to rip the bandaid off and watch this, because I know it’s only a matter of time until I feel obligated to for Oscar prep, and better to make this quarantined winter more manageable by seeing it now. And the result? Well, it's about as ridiculously "dramatic" as you'd expect from the get-go, especially older J.D. Vance's "redneck"-defense at dinner, followed by trying to reason with his sister about why he can't come home, which is responded to with an invalidating.. "can you just come home?" (a question that had been asked already four times in a span of three minutes, but now it's done with dramatic pause- ahhh, cue inner conflict). What tries to be (and in all likelihood was, in its source) a fair call for sensitivity toward marginalized resource-diseased impoverished whites, comes off as a case of the Poor Me's and antithetical narrative whereby we're set up to expect a defense of this population as complex and instead get the liberal self-fulfilling prophecy diagnosing their problematic DNA. The worst part is that Ron Howard isn't trying to be mean-spirited, yet can't help but travel down that trajectory. In his defense, it's a lot easier.

And now for the (well, my) million dollar question.. No, it’s not a good depiction of addiction (duh), but it is an unfortunately on-point depiction of the sensationalized kaleidoscope as the only means through which America feels comfortable approaching addiction, a delusional intimacy that’s really an act of spying on the population from afar [Ah, addiction- where liberals and conservatives can agree on the condescending and offensive “pull yourself up by your bootstraps (but do it out of my eyesight)” philosophy]. There’s no attempt to understand or empathize because those who can turn on and off this numero-uno quick-fix coping skill in alcohol and drug use can’t comprehend the idea of no filter-switch, and the lack of willingness to get outside one’s own experience leaves only room left for pejorative sympathy and gawking.

The movie made me sick, and also reflected my experiences with non-addicts to a T via Howard’s self-aggrandizing, pitying worldview. Nobody really wants to know the complexities of the Amy Adams of the world, they just want to pretend like they do, and pat themselves on the back for watching a movie like this that forces them to get a faux-surrogate experience for a couple hours. Well here is an artificial form to make that possible for Netflix audiences 'round the country! Sometimes it feels really good to perpetuate stigma, I guess, especially if the alternative is challenging those comfy medieval preconceptions of addiction as a moral disease (just like.. we progressives expect conservatives to pull up 'dem bootstraps and challenge their own conceptions on our issues?). From what I’ve heard, the book gave progressives their demanded “explanation” for why poor white conservatives vote as they do- as if we can truly “understand” another’s life, just to feel better within the framework of their own terms of engagement, so maybe this is a good adaptation, if in the spirit of its recontextualization only.

After I wrote this blurb, I decided to read Ty Burr’s, of the Boston Globe, review- since I tend to respect his Ebert-like tendency to delve into social justice in cases like these. He aptly calls it “poverty porn” but especially the end of his review is, unsurprisingly, a better summation of my own perceptions, and a pleasant reminder that like-minded allies exist in some places:

Worse, by neutering the specifics of where these people live and come from, Howard’s “Hillbilly Elegy” renders the story meaningless. Accents aside, the film could be taking place anywhere poverty and opioid addiction plague this country, and if “Elegy” is reasonably honest about the latter, there are real, systemic reasons the cycle continues the way it does in Kentucky and Middletown, Ohio, as opposed to elsewhere. Bev isn’t “poor white trash” just because her and Mamaw’s “pride” gets in the way. And plenty of people who grow up poor in the South have learned which fork to use or know the name of more than one white wine, both of which flummox law student Vance in an early scene.

But that’s the way “Hillbilly Elegy” portrays these people and the way a lot of viewers feel comfortable seeing them: As indomitable victims of their own lousy choices. The movie’s a neoliberal’s fantasy and a sociopolitical tract defanged. It will probably get nominated for a lot of awards.

Sadly, this is the way too many progressives I know (and respect), in my field and in my personal life, treat the idea of addiction- and all the suffering people that come with it. This is their movie.

[soundchaser]

TWBB, I know this is your field (and your personal life, as you’ve said elsewhere), so you’re better equipped to discuss this subject than I am, but I find the notion of choice an increasingly slippery one these days — people are very, very quick to castigate in general, and the sanctimony of those who think themselves above everyone else (I know of someone who told those who had a visit with anyone on Thanksgiving that they’d “committed a war crime.”) is tremendously infuriating to me.

All of which is to say: not that I needed another reason to stay away from this movie, but you’ve made a compelling case for actively avoiding it.

[therewillbeblus]

You're not alone in that fury, my friend.

In lighter news, Close will surely win her Oscar for this, totally ironic after she went after Paltrow's Shakespeare in Love Best Actress win, completely unprompted, in a recent interview. This performance, which could double as an SNL-guest skit with the addition of a laugh track (honestly not an exaggeration), surely "makes sense!"

[therewillbeblus]

This has been wrestling around in my mind today and I feel compelled to dissect it a bit more, because I believe on a metacontextual level the film reveals a very interesting truth about the inability for liberals and conservatives to truly resign their respective schemas in empathizing with the other. This movie is the progressive example of that failing, and reads like it was made by people who want to want to empathize but in actuality don’t unless it’s on their terms, and this leads to characters such as Amy Adams (who as far as I’m concerned is one of our greatest leading actresses, totally wasted here) being given a unidimensional character with Big Moments of emotion, but without any charitable development to appear dignified as a real person, causing any drama to fall flat on its face. It’s actually a fascinating process to watch: filmmakers trying so hard to get outside of themselves, and unable to get out of their own way to do so. The soapbox is too alluring, or perhaps we are too deeply conditioned to our frameworks for approaching ‘others.’ This is a film that believes it’s humanistic but isn’t because of some internal conflict that clouds connection with superiority, and the result is watching a zoo exhibit where we feel for the animals and then turn the empathy off as we exit, blaming them for being caught, and not seeing that as privilege- because at this point addiction and non-racially-binding socioeconomic disparities aren’t hot-topic zeitgeist issues in the same ways others are that demand we confront our specific privileges, and treat them with a compassionate ‘not-knowing-but-willing-to-listen’ humility. Hopefully soon.

Basically, this is a cynical portrait of our unwillingness to provide real empathy to all. It’s also just so triggering to watch every character, whether they ‘know better’ or not, tell an addict to “shape up” as if it’s their choice to be throwing their life away, as if we can’t separate a character’s responsibility from the other factors that suppress their ability to overcome deficits on will power alone, and hold both together (don’t we progressives pride ourselves on advanced critical thinking skills?) In these moments, especially a final choice at the end that tosses away a “me and mine” collectivist conservative ideology toward a liberal individualistic one, you notice conservative characters become liberalized- showcasing the inflexibility of the filmmakers’ biases here to even grant the narrative its own language to reframe the same action as a conservative one. I mean, J.D. Vance is not a liberal (but of course there's no mention of politics here at all)! Also

SpoilerShow

the final frame showcasing Bev's sustained sobriety may be the most insulting part- because now audiences will tie the ‘shaming/moral-based addiction model/get yourself together but not on my watch’ attitude with success- not to mention failing to address the invisible systemic barriers and lack of resources. What an unearned pat on the back.

[Toland's Mitchell]

SpoilerShow

the final frame showcasing Bev's sustained sobriety may be the most insulting part- because now audiences will tie the ‘shaming/moral-based addiction model/get yourself together but not on my watch’ attitude with success- not to mention failing to address the invisible systemic barriers and lack of resources. What an unearned pat on the back.

Personally that isn't how I interpreted the ending because

SpoilerShow

'shaming and get yourself together' weren't working on Adams's character throughout the film. Somewhere between the last time we saw her on screen and the 'six years of sobriety footnote', something triggered her to go sober, but we don't know what because we never saw even a trace of it. Still, I can see how audiences may interpret the ending as mentioned by TWBB, especially when no alternative was presented as the film 'failed to address systemic barriers and lack of resources.

As for the movie itself, it was a drag, for it focused almost solely on the human suffering aspect of addiction and neglect. Thus Adams's performance, while convincing, was mostly monotonous and got tiresome after a while. There was barely any arc to her, and the film's one-sentence summary of her fate at the epilogue didn't do any justice. It could have been interesting to see how she reformed, but the movie didn't go there. The movie also refused to delve into the complexities of the issues it pretended to examine. There's no need to expand on this, for others have already done so in this thread. I'll just finish by saying it would nice to see Close and Adams get a statue some day, but not for this. Even though their performances were convincing, this hollow shell of a film should not have an 'Oscar-winning' badge to its credit.

[therewillbeblus]

SpoilerShow

the final frame showcasing Bev's sustained sobriety may be the most insulting part- because now audiences will tie the ‘shaming/moral-based addiction model/get yourself together but not on my watch’ attitude with success- not to mention failing to address the invisible systemic barriers and lack of resources. What an unearned pat on the back.

Personally that isn't how I interpreted the ending because

SpoilerShow

'shaming and get yourself together' weren't working on Adams's character throughout the film. Somewhere between the last time we saw her on screen and the 'six years of sobriety footnote', something triggered her to go sober, but we don't know what because we never saw even a trace of it. Still, I can see how audiences may interpret the ending as mentioned by TWBB, especially when no alternative was presented as the film 'failed to address systemic barriers and lack of resources.

SpoilerShow

I definitely don't think this is a connection people will make on a conscious level, and it certainly wasn't the filmmakers' intentions, but in a roundabout way I think the 'look the other way' attitude is reinforced. The narrative as we saw it featured J.D. trying to help his family at his own expense, and not being able to succeed. It's true that he can't get his mother sober, and so I don't have a problem with his choice. But since the last image we see of Bev is when J.D. abandons her in a hotel room, abandoning the 'me and mine' conservatism for an individualistic liberal move to higher ed (again, no problem with this on a surface level, just an interesting observation), and then a title card saying "she's six years sober!" it will allow many audiences to draw subconscious connections between looking the other way from addicts, family or otherwise, and success for their sobriety. Nobody is going to admit that this is a causal recipe, but it 100% plays into a 'pull yourself up by your bootstraps (and out of my sight)' view.

Also, I think I was insulted by the title card because just the mention of her sobriety is dangerous and exploitative for audience gratification. Staying sober is a daily struggle and there's a reason why recovery programs have specific traditions against publicly sharing sobriety to the masses- because a) there's research that shows that such a public disclosure makes a person more likely to relapse, and b) if that person relapses, it can reinforce narrative stigma against the community by indirectly saying 'AA doesn't work' or 'people can't stay sober.' Especially for someone like Bev who has a history of relapse, Howard and co. dramatically revealing her sobriety time at the end is fucking disgusting on multiple levels, and as an insider in Hollywood (chalk full of celebs in recovery, some of whom break this tradition, others who follow it well) he should know better.

[Toland's Mitchell]

Personally that isn't how I interpreted the ending because

SpoilerShow

'shaming and get yourself together' weren't working on Adams's character throughout the film. Somewhere between the last time we saw her on screen and the 'six years of sobriety footnote', something triggered her to go sober, but we don't know what because we never saw even a trace of it. Still, I can see how audiences may interpret the ending as mentioned by TWBB, especially when no alternative was presented as the film 'failed to address systemic barriers and lack of resources.

SpoilerShow

I definitely don't think this is a connection people will make on a conscious level, and it certainly wasn't the filmmakers' intentions, but in a roundabout way I think the 'look the other way' attitude is reinforced. The narrative as we saw it featured J.D. trying to help his family at his own expense, and not being able to succeed. It's true that he can't get his mother sober, and so I don't have a problem with his choice. But since the last image we see of Bev is when J.D. abandons her in a hotel room, abandoning the 'me and mine' conservatism for an individualistic liberal move to higher ed (again, no problem with this on a surface level, just an interesting observation), and then a title card saying "she's six years sober!" it will allow many audiences to draw subconscious connections between looking the other way from addicts, family or otherwise, and success for their sobriety. Nobody is going to admit that this is a causal recipe, but it 100% plays into a 'pull yourself up by your bootstraps (and out of my sight)' view.

Also, I think I was insulted by the title card because just the mention of her sobriety is dangerous and exploitative for audience gratification. Staying sober is a daily struggle and there's a reason why recovery programs have specific traditions against publicly sharing sobriety to the masses- because a) there's research that shows that such a public disclosure makes a person more likely to relapse, and b) if that person relapses, it can reinforce narrative stigma against the community by indirectly saying 'AA doesn't work' or 'people can't stay sober.' Especially for someone like Bev who has a history of relapse, Howard and co. dramatically revealing her sobriety time at the end is fucking disgusting on multiple levels, and as an insider in Hollywood (chalk full of celebs in recovery, some of whom break this tradition, others who follow it well) he should know better.

SpoilerShow

Right, I was in agreement that may certainly be how some, if not most, viewers would interpret the ending. But it wasn't how I interpreted it because it left everything unanswered about her recovery process. I was mostly bothered by the 'six years sober' footnote because it deliberately evaded that process, which could have made the movie more interesting from the seemingly endless 'pain and suffering' we received for 110 minutes. I'm not suggesting I wanted the movie to go on for another 30+ minutes because there were a multitude of other problems that made me want the movie to end. Anyway, I was not aware of the dangers of sobriety publicity, and it got me thinking about the comparison mentioned over on The Queen's Gambit thread, regarding which had a worse answer to addiction (which I might bring up on that thread at a later time). Hard to say but they're both pretty bad.

[therewillbeblus]

Well said, I'm glad you had the ability to consciously treat that process with attentive humility- but unfortunately I think you're an outlier there..

[aox]

I personally found that coda pretty insulting and I would be absolutely embarrassed if that was my station immemoriam. So, if she relapses, does Howard "George Lucas" his film and update the title card? Will people be pining for the original cut? Seems like a lot of pressure on her. Also, I wish her the best, but that point couldn't have been more unnecessary. I think I really hate this movie.

[therewillbeblus]

Yeah, if you really pare back the reasons why that 'needed' to be revealed, it really shows some disgusting unearned self-gratification. Particularly when shown through a liberal eye, it cements my experience of progressives being just as problematic in their treatment of addicts as non-progressives, and makes this even more depressing and hopeless for a change in attitude.