‘Hillbilly Elegy’ covers addiction, family issues

     Based on the memoir by J.D. Vance, Hillbilly Elegy follows the story of Vance’s childhood and his transition from Middletown, Ohio to life at Yale Law School.

     Around the beginning of the movie, J.D. (Gabriel Basso) gets a call from his sister informing him that his mother, who has been an addict since he was a kid, has overdosed. J.D. returns home where we see more about his childhood in a series of flashback-like memories.

     Senior Jill Powell watched the movie and said, “it was really great.” She describes the acting as “amazing” and names Amy Adams as her personal favorite performance. English teacher Mrs.Carla Harward has also seen the movie and describes the acting as “outstanding” and also names Adams as a favorite, in combination with Glenn Close

     Adams portrays the role of Bev Vance, J.D’s addict mother and Close plays Mawmaw (J.D.’s grandmother).

     Without giving too much of the movie away, Powell says Adams’ best scene was Bev’s meltdown in the street outside the Vance family home. Harward, on the other hand, doesn’t name a specific scene as her favorite but instead describes the scenes featuring both Adams and Close as a mother-daughter duo. “Those are the most intense scenes which really get the core of family addiction,” said Harward

     Overall, Powell says she “wish[es] [the movie] could’ve gone more in depth” specifically “in the grandparents’ history.” Although Hillbilly Elegy is full of flashbacks of J.D’s childhood, there is only one scene that displays Bev’s childhood that also shows Mawmaw at that time as well.

     Although it is based on a memoir, neither Powell nor Harward have read it yet, but both are definitely willing to. Powell explains she wants to read the memoir “because the story is a true story and that is always interesting.” Harward agrees. “I would like to compare the two to see if the movie stays true to the novel.