We Watched "Hillbilly Elegy" So You Don't Have To

Two hours with JD Vance in which we discuss MAGA, addiction dramas, which fork to use at a fancy dinner, class in movies, the glaring lack of viral "Hillbilly Elegy" memes, and much more

The story starts in one place; it may wind up somewhere else entirely. 

In the time between the release of Hillbilly Elegy and our sitting down to watch the movie adapted from his book, JD Vance has transformed himself from the ghost whisperer of Appalachian Trump voters, a vocal Trump antagonist who once referred to the 2016 presidential candidate as having the potential to become “America’s Hitler,” into Trump’s 2024 vice-presidential nominee, a Yale Law School graduate self-consciously preening as the representative of furious working-class (white) Americans. 

And in the time between our watching the movie and the publication of this story, Vance has transformed himself once more, openly spreading baseless rumors about his own constituents, amplifying lies about Haitians in Springfield, Ohio murdering children and killing pets.  Vance has been unabashed in his ugly rhetoric, and his utter lack of concern with the consequences of his lies—the bomb threats, the marching Proud Boys—marks the capstone of a stunning transformation: from purportedly sensitive memoirist to quasi-fascist rhetorician, in under a decade. 

The question of what makes JD Vance tick is no longer an interesting one; it is depressingly, gruelingly familiar for any of us who have borne witness to the malignant growth of MAGA in the time since Donald Trump first descended his golden escalator.  The question of what makes a movie about JD Vance tick is a more interesting one, and it led the two of us to sit down together, a few weeks back, and watch this movie.  Here’s what we made of it.

**

Jennifer Armstrong:

I am already angry because my Netflix told me that based on my preferences, it thinks I will LOVE THIS.

Saul Austerlitz:

I have given myself a pep talk that I need to try to approach this as a movie, and not just a reflection of someone I hate, but I am not going to succeed.

Jennifer:

We should note that we are watching this 12 hours after Tim Walz’s incredible DNC production.

Saul:

I am angry that this is not a movie about Tim Walz.

I already feel sorry for all these great actors, like Glenn Close and Amy Adams, who are in this movie.

Jennifer:

I am trying to get myself into the mental space of “Opie Taylor made this” rather than “this is about JD Vance.”

Saul:

I admit that I read and liked this book when it came out.

Jennifer:

I owned it (still do, maybe?), but did not actually read it.

Saul:

I did not adequately appreciate at the time the extent to which it was a coming-out for this ugly political career.

I will say that the book seemed to have a sympathy for white working-class Americans that has since gone sour for Vance, and turned into an inability to hear anyone else speak.

Jennifer:

I feel like we were all flogging ourselves with this book. And then it turned into … what we’ve got now.

Saul:

We know people in the movie are a bit less polished because they are all smoking.

Jennifer:

I was totally noticing the smoking! 

Saul:

This is smart: Vance at a Yale Law dinner freezing on being asked what kind of wine he wants.

Jennifer:

I wouldn’t have known which wine to choose either at that age!

Do you think some Yale kids would? I guess probably.

Saul:

I would have turned into a puddle on the floor if I was asked to identify a wine at that age (or now, for that matter).

Jennifer:

OH NO THE DREADED MULTIPLE FORKS.

Saul:

I have a lot of questions about the real-life Usha Vance, played here by Freida Pinto as JD’s law-school girlfriend, that I will refrain from asking.

Jennifer :

So many.

Saul:

Having your husband walk around talking about how women are around only to have babies is weird.

Especially when you clerked for John Roberts, which is a BFD.

Jennifer:

It’s so hard for me to understand! I pride myself in understanding other people, but maybe I’m not as good as it as I like to think.

Saul:

JD takes umbrage at the term “rednecks” here in a nice way at the dinner he attends with snooty law partners.

I’m not familiar with Gabriel Basso, but he has that same pudgy regular-guy look as Vance.

Amy Adams freaks when their new dog pisses on the rug.

She is so good at bringing that fire to sequences like these.

Jennifer:

She’s so good here, you can see how she’s kind of abusive, and also lovable.

Saul:

I spent so much of my youth in dingy baseball-card shops just like this one JD and his mom are visiting.

Jennifer:

Mom steals cards for JD!

Ugh, this JD Vance character is so appealing.

Saul:

This is making me think about romantic comedies and Hollywood standards.

In romantic comedies, everyone is always an architect or a doctor or something cool-sounding.

It’s so rare for characters to not be middle-class.

And this movie is a helpful reminder of that.

Jennifer:

That’s so true.

Saul:

OK, now she is suddenly trying to crash the car with JD in it.

This seems pretty nuts.

Jennifer:

This really took a turn.

Saul:

I do not understand her almost killing them both to teach him a lesson.

Jennifer:

They were having kind of an interesting conversation before she lost it.

She was basically saying she has to date lots of men to provide for them and survive.

Which is an interesting counterpoint to his current stance on women.

Saul:

I am pushed here to consider the notion of abused people themselves becoming abusive in some fashion.

With Vance, it’s rhetorical, but there is still a relentless desire to punch down.

Jennifer:

Even as JD’s credit card is getting declined, we have the sneaking sense that he is angriest of all at the poor people around him.

Saul:

I am wondering what we do with well-meaning films like these that wind up, whether accidentally or through negligence, serving an ugly leader’s agenda.

Do we absolutely have to reject films like these, or is there a way for us to still find something of value in them?

Jennifer:

This might be our key question.

Saul:

This is like a weird counterpart to The Apprentice, which raises similar questions from a very different place.

Jennifer:

YES

I would actually love to see this with the sequel appended, where he becomes a political monster.

Saul:

Hillbilly Elegy 2: The MAGA Years

Jennifer:

As Obama said at the convention, the sequel is usually worse.

I do think it’s extremely interesting that Donald Trump chose JD Vance.

Saul:

Say more.

Jennifer:

Like, he chose a guy who had a movie made about him.

I wouldn’t be surprised if to Trump, that’s the ultimate cred.

Trump would love for Hollywood to love him.

He pretends he doesn’t care now, but he does.

Because they are the hottest and the richest.

Saul:

I have just purchased the world’s tiniest violin and am playing a heart-rending solo on it as we speak

So, the book is a lament for the Appalachian working class that is also a critique of their failings.

And I think that’s a hard thing to pull off in a film like this.

There is a danger for this film of having it feel like a nasty swipe at its characters, and the movie is struggling to balance its affection for JD’s mother and grandmother with its moralizing about their weaknesses.

But in retrospect, I understand that Vance is a shape-shifter willing to say whatever he needs to in order to gain power, and so the book reads very differently to me now.

Jennifer:

Side note, washing plastic silverware, like his mom is doing, is some legit lower middle-class shit! [Jennifer’s note: We cut a part earlier in this exchange where I explain that I come from working-class people who were quite proud of that, and I feel like I should mention that here. All of which is to say: Washing plastic forks is great! Better for the environment, even, if you’re going to use plastic forks!]

Saul:

The book is not all bad, but I definitely see it in a very different light than when I read it in 2017.

So much of art has to do with whether we believe the person making the art is operating in good faith.

We need to trust that they want to tell the truth or say something of value.

Jennifer:

He wouldn’t be the first to sell his family out for a bestseller.

And now to say whatever to become VP.

Saul: 

Vance’s book was strongest when it conveyed the sense of humiliation at the messier parts of his family life, which I think is what Howard is trying to play up here with adult JD’s worries every time he has to pay for anything, or having to wrestle with his mother’s addiction.

Jennifer:

I suppose it’s also possible that he was genuine in the book and has since changed.

I mean, this book made him a Republican hero from the start, didn’t it?

Saul:

Bad news: there is another 59 minutes of this movie.

Jennifer:

When Vance was first named as the VP candidate one of my text chains (full of politically aware people) freaked out because there was this idea that he was charismatic.

Like that he was the second coming of Palin but smart. Not how it’s played out so far!

Saul:

So this leads me to something that I think is worth talking about, which is gender.

Movie JD is coded as admirable and relatable in part because he’s a white guy.

And yet so much of the movie is about the pain of women, especially his mother and grandmother.

And on the political stage, Vance was selected in part because of these regular-guy bona fides, but it’s like they forgot that more than 50% of voters are women, and they don’t like assholes who talk about them like they are nobodies.

Jennifer:

Including what we’re watching right now! JD’s Mamaw is fighting back against her piece-of-shit husband.

Saul:

Uh, Glenn Close just lit someone on fire.

Jennifer:

This is about abusive women who are abusive because of abusive men.

He literally said women should just stay in abusive marriages.

Which is wild given all of this. His grandmother lit his grandfather on fire!

Saul:

Telling women to stay is morally indefensible.

And having firsthand experience of women who were abused and then arguing that is beyond my comprehension.

Glenn Close just said “kiss my ruby-red asshole.” 

Jennifer:

And now mom is married to this new guy we’ve never seen before?

Saul:

I feel like social media needs to discover this movie. Where are the memes?!?

Jennifer:

Also, after the last scene, I feel compelled to say yet again how good Amy Adams is.

Saul:

She is, but this movie is wasting her prodigious abilities.

Her role feels very thin.

Jennifer:

She is doing the most here.

Now JD’s been peer pressured by his new stepbrother into smoking weed!

This is a problem with biopics, they have to cram too much in.

Saul:

I am feeling some whiplash here.

Now we are in Movie of the Week territory, with bad-boy teenage JD running wild and getting into trouble.

Jennifer:

This is way too melodramatic, but this speech maybe offers a hint at his future ideology?

“You’re a shitty mom, and so are you!”

It’s all the fault of shitty moms!

Saul:

Perhaps being angry at the women in your life, even if you love them, leads you to being angry at women in general?

Jennifer:

I don’t know why that means people have to get married and have children, but it’s a start.

Saul:

I won’t speak for you, but hearing Vance say what he said about childless women made me really fucking furious.

Jennifer:

Then Usha was like, “he wasn’t talking about people who can’t conceive, just people who choose not to.”

Which you can imagine did not sit well with me.

Saul:

I think about all the childless women in my life, whatever reason there might be for that, and hearing Vance dismiss them was so intensely callous and cruel that it feels unforgivable to me.

Jennifer:

I’m the worst kind: I have a male partner, I am not infertile that I know of, and we chose not to have children.

Saul:

HOW IS THIS ANYONE’S FUCKING BUSINESS, JENNIFER?

Jennifer:

I did not expect to defend my right to vote based on this.

Saul:

I do not want any bearded overlords deciding whether my life choices are OK.

Jennifer:

I almost married someone once and it would have been an absolute disaster. Like very, very bad news. And even worse if we’d had kids, which he wanted.

Saul:

I can only imagine.

Whoa, this guy just called Amy Adams a “junkie whore.”

Jennifer:

OK, now we are just doing a series of After School Specials.

Saul:

Now JD is going all Liam Neeson to rescue his mother from an abusive boyfriend.

This is what they teach at Yale Law:

“Taking the Law Into Your Own Hands 101.”

Do you see this movie as more sympathetic to Amy Adams, or to JD for having her as a mother?

Jennifer:

This is about JD.

And what a crazy mom he had.

Saul:

Yeah, she feels like a collection of tropes.

Jennifer:

And how impressive it is that he still went to Yale.

And that’s why we should all be able to do it too.

Saul:

“If JD could do it, what’s wrong with you?”

Jennifer:

I think that’s the secret title of this movie.

And if all these women had men and knew their place, it wouldn’t all be so hard.

I do like that Glenn Close just said Amy Adams was “dumb as a bag of hair.”

Saul:

This is a stealth addiction drama, but not necessarily a good one.

Jennifer:

I used to love addiction dramas!

Saul:

Sorry, what? Something about Poles liking to bury their dead with their asses in the air so they have somewhere to park their bikes? This movie may not be anything approaching great, but I am confident that Glenn Close had a whale of a time playing this role.

Jennifer:

There is some colorful dialogue here.

Addiction dramas are much better when focused on the addict.

Saul:

High school JD needs the calculator for school, but it costs $84

And he mutters it to Mamaw, like he’s embarrassed to admit that he doesn’t have the money, which is why he tried to steal it.

Jennifer:

I *loved* my TI-89.

Now here we have a thesis statement from Mawmaw.

Saul:

This would have been the speech they would show at the Oscars, if things had gone differently.

Ron Howard’s middlebrow-ness is not serving him well here.

This is tough material, and it needs to be tougher.

Jennifer:

I guess I’m at least glad it didn’t win an Oscar.

Yeah, I have a memory of most people being like UGH when it came out.

But that was the year that Glenn Close did “Da Butt” at the weird Oscar ceremony.

Saul:

Montage of teenage JD getting his shit together!

Washing the dishes, taking out the trash, and doing his math homework.

I will be showing this segment to my children

Jennifer:

😂love this kind of montage

He’s doing honest work now!

He’s not stealing!

Saul:

Glenn Close is the best thing about this movie.

Jennifer:

Imagine how bad this movie would be without these actors.

Saul:

I like that quiet look of satisfaction on the face of Mamaw, who has now taken JD in, as she looks at her grandson’s math test.

Jennifer:

The mom melodrama is getting exhausting, though I suppose that’s the point.

Saul:

I am thinking about people who have lived with disorder needing order, and that order perhaps shading over into also needing control

Jennifer:

Definitely.

I also just had a thought about Trump.

Let’s just say I don’t think it’s good for little JD to be in a long-term relationship with someone like Trump, given the Mom of it all.

Saul:

Trump is a fascinating psychological experiment in action.

Everyone thinks they will escape without having their soul sucked out of them or being humiliated, and no one does.

So JD has to leave his mom behind to save himself.

Jennifer:

And be with his beautiful and classy girlfriend.

Saul:

There is a hint of a better movie here in this sequence, where he’s driving away from Ohio to his job interview

It reminds me of the movie Locke, which takes place entirely with Tom Hardy in crisis behind the wheel of a car in the middle of the night.  This is almost that movie, with JD in the car, wrestling with the disparate parts of his life, before definitively resolving to be something less compelling.

Jennifer:

That would be a super-cool approach here.

Omg I *knew* him arriving for the job interview would be the ending.

Saul:

This ending now plays quite differently

Did you ever see Vice? Where the movie ends with Dick and Lynne Cheney hanging out at home playing with their dogs, and the credits roll, and then the phone rings and Bush offers him the VP job?

Jennifer:

When the Netflix screen comes on asking “did you like this,” it feels like a more complex choice here.

Saul:

Ha!

Final thoughts here?

Jennifer:

I will probably still be thinking about it for a while, but mainly, I do not think this is an objectively great film.

Saul:

Some movies are just sideswiped by reality.

Jennifer:

Something interesting is that it’s a unique case of a biopic essentially made too early.

Saul:

No one went in, I assume, looking to buff up JD Vance’s political career.

Jennifer:

Like this is not the most interesting part of his life arc.

Saul:

And I am guessing Ron Howard is not the MAGA type.

Jennifer:

The funny part is I looked it up to be sure and Google autocompleted to “Is Ron Howard a Republican?”

So I wasn’t the only one wondering.

Saul:

Hollywood challenge: go make the Tim Walz biopic so we are even Steven.

Who would we cast as Tim and Gwen?

Jennifer:

Steve Martin turned down SNL, but I think he could do the dramatic side.

Saul:

I’m thinking Laura Linney.

Jennifer:

Ooh, that’s good.

Saul:

I am renting my tuxedo for the Oscars.

Jennifer:

Hollywood, please option our text idea!

I definitely would not have watched this without you.

Saul:

Oh, I would NEVER have watched this movie otherwise.