Netflix has released the new trailer for Ron Howard’s adaptation of J.D. Vance’s memoir about growing up in Appalachia, Hillbilly Elegy. The film will premiere on the streaming service November 24th.
The film stars Gabriel Basso as Vance and is set at the moment when the former Marine and current Yale Law student is on the cusp of getting his dream job. He’s unfortunately forced to return home to southern Ohio to tend to a family crisis. As the trailer teases, the film seems to jump between past and present as Vance tries to help his mother, Bev (played by Amy Adams), who struggles with addiction, while drawing on the memories of his grandmother Mamaw (Glenn Close), who raised him.
Vance — who works primarily as a venture capitalist and got his start working at a firm owned by Peter Thiel — published Hillbilly Elegy in August 2016. While it became a bestseller upon its initial arrival, it saw a significant resurgence several months later, following the election of President Donald Trump.
The book earned plenty of plaudits for its depiction of life in Appalachia, and many turned to it as a way to understand what forces propelled Trump to victory in states like Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin. However, the book had its fair share of critics, too, who pushed back against its narrow depiction of white Appalachia as well as Vance’s conservative bent when discussing issues like poverty in the region (last year, several authors united to publish Appalachian Reckoning, an anthology response to Hillbilly Elegy).
From Rolling Stone US
