The Associated Press
This image released by Netflix shows Haley Bennett, from left, Glenn Close and Owen Asztalos in a scene from Hillbilly Elegy. (Lacey Terrell/Netflix via AP)
J.D. Vance’s “Hillbilly Elegy,” an election-year explainer to liberal America about the white underclass that fueled Donald Trump’s rise, has been reborn as blandly overbaked awards bait.
Ron Howard’s adaptation, penned by Vanessa Taylor, has mostly done away with the moralizing social examination that made Vance’s bestseller the second half of that subtitle, “A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis” such a lightning rod. The 2016 book came at the moment many were searching for explanations for the political shift taking place across Appalachia and the Rust Belt. “Hillbilly Elegy,” a pick-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps cultural critique-slash-tribute to the author’s Ohio-Kentucky heritage, emerged as one of the trendiest answers.
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