Summary
Netflix’sHillbilly Elegyjust saw a massive rise in viewership. Itis a 2020 movie based on J.D. Vance’s bestselling 2016 memoir,Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis. The film features a leading cast including Glenn Close,Amy Adams, Gabriel Basso, Haley Bennett, Freida Pinto, Bo Hopkins, Owen Asztalos, and Jesse C. Boyd. Vance is a junior senator in Ohio, and was recently in the news for being named Donald Trump’s pick for Vice President for the 2024 presidential election.
As perDeadline,Hillbilly Elegyhas now seen a massive increase in viewership on Netflix.According to the source, the viewership on Netflix grew by 1,180% from Sunday to Monday, expanding from 1.5 million minutes to 19.2 million minutes viewed. That equates to roughly 9.5 million viewers on July 15, which compared to only 750,000 viewers on Sunday, July 14.
Explaining Hillbilly Elegy’s Poor Reception
Hillbilly Elegy Is Controversial
With Vance’s VP nomination being announced yesterday, this exponential rise inHillbilly Elegyviews almost certainly has a correlation with that event.Hillbilly Elegy’s reviewscertainly have not improved over time, as the movie currently has a rotten 25% Tomatometer on Rotten Tomatoes. Critics of the film accused itof being poorly drawn out and Oscar bait.The New Yorker’s Richard Brody, for example, wrote that director Ron Howard included “soupy, impersonal manipulations of memory and experience,” while Tim Robey ofDaily Telegraphwrote that the film was “four years late and doomed.”
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Both themovieHillbilly Elegyand its source materialare highly controversial. Vance received pushback from journalists and historians over his depictions of people in Appalachia. Many felt that the Yale graduate’s depiction of the Rust Belt was offensive and stereotypical, painting the area’s denizens as loud and lazy rather than victims of systemic barriers that inhibit their success. For this reason,Hillbilly Elegywas controversial as a story even before the film itself was made.
Hillbilly Elegy
Cast
Directed by Ron Howard for release on Netflix, Hillbilly Elegy is a Drama film released in 2020 and stars Amy Adams and Glenn Close. The plot is based on author J.D. Vance’s memoir of the same name and follows a family as they attempt to deal with their mother’s unstable lifestyle.
