The one thing you're guaranteed with a Ron Howard film is professionalism even if there may be a dearth of imagination. The lack of imagination in "Hillbilly Elegy" extends to the title which is one of the poorest of a mainstream film this year. It's another growing up and coming-of-age saga in, dare I say it, Hillbilly country and it's well enough made; beautifully photographed and designed, like so many Ron Howard films and equally lacking in imagination which isn't to say you might not enjoy it. For starters, Howard has cast two of the best actresses in America as leads; Amy Adams is the Po' White Trash Mamma, (she's old enough to take mother roles now), and Glenn Close is the Po' White Trash Grandma and they are both excellent in very conventional roles.
It's the biography of one, J.D. Vance, (Gabriel Basso as an adult and Owen Asztalos as the younger version), a Yale law graduate who manages to break free from his family but who is forced back when his mom od's on heroin and it's based on the book he wrote about his family. Even if you didn't know it, you could still guess this was a Ron Howard picture and that's not a recommendation. Howard's 'autership' means all his films look and sound alike in the way that Reader's Digest novels were all alike, aimed at people who didn't want to try the real thing. This movie is condescending in the extreme; Oscar-bait fare for Adams and Close and very typical of its director.
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