Vice President JD Vance made good on a campaign promise of his own on Friday, bringing his mother to the White House to celebrate her tenth year of sobriety after a long struggle with addiction.
Vance shared several photos on X on Monday marking the event, adding the caption, &#8220;This year marks my mom&#8217;s 10th year of sobriety, and I&#8217;m grateful that we were able to celebrate in the White House with our family. Mom, I am so proud of you.&#8221;
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This year marks my mom’s 10th year of sobriety, and I&#39;m grateful that we were able to celebrate in the White House with our family.   Mom, I am so proud of you. <a href="https://t.co/aGIKebEPYb">pic.twitter.com/aGIKebEPYb</a>
&mdash; Vice President JD Vance (@VP) <a href="https://twitter.com/VP/status/1909270949817438436?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 7, 2025</a></blockquote>
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Vance described his mother&#8217;s struggles with opioid addiction in his widely acclaimed memoir, &#8220;Hillbilly Elegy&#8221; — and knowing that her 10th year sober was approaching, he had promised to celebrate the milestone at the White House from the stage at the 2024 Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
&#8220;I&#8217;m proud to say that tonight my mom is here, ten years clean and sober,&#8221; Vance said at the time. &#8220;It&#8217;ll be ten years officially in 2025, and if President Trump&#8217;s OK with it, let&#8217;s have the celebration in the White House.&#8221;
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.<a href="https://twitter.com/JDVance?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@JDVance</a> at the RNC convention: 
“I&#39;m proud to say that tonight my mom is here, 10 years clean and sober…. It&#39;ll be 10 years officially in 2025, and if President Trump&#39;s OK with it, let&#39;s have the celebration in the White House.”
On Friday, JD Vance’s mom received her 10-year… <a href="https://t.co/AwKlssfb83">pic.twitter.com/AwKlssfb83</a>
&mdash; Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) <a href="https://twitter.com/libsoftiktok/status/1909280005030633501?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 7, 2025</a></blockquote>
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Beverly Vance received her official 10-year medallion celebrating the milestone at the White House on Friday.
The Washington Examiner&#8217;s Salena Zito shared several photos from the event as well, quoting Vance as saying, &#8220;Well, here we are. And you made it and we made it. And most importantly, you&#8217;re celebrating a very, very big milestone. And I&#8217;m just very proud of you.&#8221;
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
&quot;And you know mom, I was thinking, it will be 10 years officially in January of 2025 and if President Trump &#39;s okay with it, lets have the celebration in the White House” <a href="https://twitter.com/JDVance?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@JDVance</a> July 2024 Milwaukee
“Well here we are. And you made it and we made it. And most importantly, you&#39;re… <a href="https://t.co/6U4mdiw8mK">pic.twitter.com/6U4mdiw8mK</a>
&mdash; ZitoSalena (@ZitoSalena) <a href="https://twitter.com/ZitoSalena/status/1909006248768417925?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 6, 2025</a></blockquote>
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&#8220;This is amazing. You’ve all been thru so much. Rock on Beverly,&#8221; Megyn Kelly posted in response.
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This is amazing. You’ve all been thru so much. Rock on Beverly. <a href="https://t.co/epLPar9eYc">https://t.co/epLPar9eYc</a>
&mdash; Megyn Kelly (@megynkelly) <a href="https://twitter.com/megynkelly/status/1909273819421786323?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 7, 2025</a></blockquote>
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&#8220;Congratulations to Ms. Beverly on this inspiring milestone,&#8221; House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) added.
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Congratulations to Ms. Beverly on this inspiring milestone. <a href="https://t.co/oKFmWEle5B">https://t.co/oKFmWEle5B</a>
&mdash; Speaker Mike Johnson (@SpeakerJohnson) <a href="https://twitter.com/SpeakerJohnson/status/1909279517849391485?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 7, 2025</a></blockquote>
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&#8220;The JD’s mom sidebar narrative is so touching and amazing,&#8221; Emma-Jo Morris posted.
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The JD’s mom sidebar narrative is so touching and amazing. <a href="https://t.co/4NV3rz8i5c">https://t.co/4NV3rz8i5c</a>
&mdash; Emma-Jo Morris (@EmmaJoNYC) <a href="https://twitter.com/EmmaJoNYC/status/1909291152370483381?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 7, 2025</a></blockquote>
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&#8220;Sobriety is a beautiful thing,&#8221; Brianna Lyman posted. &#8220;So many families are devastated by loved ones who struggle with sobriety, seeing Vance&#8217;s mom mark such a huge milestone is heartwarming.&#8221;
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
Sobriety is a beautiful thing. 
So many families are devastated by loved ones who struggle with sobriety, seeing Vance&#39;s mom mark such a huge milestone is heartwarming. <a href="https://t.co/pssgJt1BsQ">https://t.co/pssgJt1BsQ</a>
&mdash; Brianna Lyman (@briannalyman2) <a href="https://twitter.com/briannalyman2/status/1909279324630388789?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 7, 2025</a></blockquote>
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2024 Republican National Convention: Day 3

JD Vance Makes Good On Promise To Celebrate Mom’s Sobriety In The White House

JD Vance Makes Good On Promise To Celebrate Mom's Sobriety In The White House

Drugs

General

Hillbilly Elegy

JD Vance

Opioid Crisis

U.S.

White House

The reaction to “<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/top-gun-maverick-becomes-studios-highest-earning-film-at-domestic-box-office-in-its-110-year-history">Top Gun: Maverick</a>” proved the exception to the new cultural rule.
Rotten Tomatoes recorded a <a href="https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/top_gun_maverick" target="_blank" rel="noopener">96% “fresh” rating</a> from movie critics for the Tom Cruise sequel, while 99% of general audiences adored it.
More often than not, though, critics and audiences disagree … and it’s not even close. Extreme examples abound, including takes on comedy, blockbusters and dramas.
The 2021 documentary “Fauci,” for example, boasts <a href="https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/fauci" target="_blank" rel="noopener">an 86% to 2% split</a>.
<a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2022-08-28/critics-and-fans-have-never-disagreed-more-about-movies" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Bloomberg recently crunched the numbers</a> on the growing divide, hailing the chasm to be the worst in decades.
Audiences have given the top 10 movies an average score more than 19 points higher than critics, by far the biggest difference this century. The only two of the year’s 10 biggest movies where audiences and critics are even close are “Top Gun: Maverick” and  “The Batman.”
Film critics are supposed to be audience surrogates. Their reviews aren’t perfunctory but pragmatic.
Should Joe and Jane Sixpack spend their Saturday night on a clunker or a dazzling drama or comedy? When the audience/critic chasm grows as large as it is now, the public isn’t being served.
Some of this is unavoidable. Cheesy blockbusters, driven by special effects and hokey dialogue, aren’t meant to draw raves. Audiences are less willing to pick apart a movie as long as it delivers the escapism they crave.
The most popular film of a given year shouldn’t automatically be given the Best Picture Oscar, either. Still, critics should examine why they no longer reflect the will of the people and consider ways to bridge that gap.
The first suggestion may be the most important. Today’s critics are overwhelmingly left-of-center. That may have always been the case, but the modern critic lets his or her ideology filter into reviews like never before.
They analyze a film’s diversity, social messaging and more, and what they find directly impacts their reviews as much as poor acting or clunky dialogue.
That means a film from Dinesh D’Souza, <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/watch/movies" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Daily Wire</a>, or Nick Searcy has a much greater chance of being hammered by critics, and dramatically so. Conversely, anything associated with far-Left filmmaker Michael Moore, or stories espousing a pro-abortion sentiment, stands a greater chance at a rave review.
And that’s wrong.
Perhaps the most cartoonish example comes from a 2018 review of “Kin,” a Dennis Quaid thriller featuring a teen fighting back against an alien threat.
The teen (Myles Truitt) uses a space gun to protect his family. The Entertainment Weekly reviewer <a href="https://ew.com/movies/2018/08/28/kin-review/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">went ballistic over the plot point</a>.
<blockquote>&#8220;This dangerous adventure is meant to be pulse-pounding and heartwarming in equal measure. But I couldn’t stop thinking about the film’s deeply troubling underlying message long enough for my pulse to pound or my heart to warm. Because, make no mistake, Kin is a movie about a child with an all-powerful firearm that makes him feel important and special and powerful. On a one-to-ten scale of moral fecklessness, this ranks about a thousand.&#8221;</blockquote>
Rating? A disastrous F.
If a critic can’t see past his anti-gun sentiments he has no right reviewing a movie like “Kin.”
The savage attacks on Ron Howard’s “<a href="https://www.netflix.com/title/81071970" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Hillbilly Elegy</a>,” spun from conservative star <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Hillbilly-Elegy-Memoir-Family-Culture/dp/0062300547" target="_blank" rel="noopener">J.D. Vance’s popular memoir</a>, captured how ideological fevers can impact a film’s critical reception. It’s hardly Howard’s best film, but the savage notices went above and beyond what was seen on the screen.
And most audiences enjoyed it, witness its <a href="https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/hillbilly_elegy" target="_blank" rel="noopener">83% “fresh” score on RT.</a> 
The folks behind the scenes also should do a better job of embracing ideological diversity within their critical ranks. Quotas aren’t the goal here, but if an outlet’s entire staff leans to the Left, and hard, some diversity could help bridge the critic/audience gap.
At least a little.
<a href="https://filmthreat.com/">Film Threat</a>, a veteran indie site, offers a fine template on balancing voices and diverse opinions.
Critics also must learn to leave their woke sentiments aside when addressing comedy. There’s a good reason we see so few funny, R-rated comedies today. Filmmakers are afraid of angering the woke mob on social media. They’re also keenly aware any “problematic” jokes will trigger critics and hurt their overall grades on sites like Rotten Tomatoes.
In recent years critics have savaged comedies from liberal stars like Will Ferrell (“Get Hard”) and Amy Schumer (“Snatched”) for being racist. Are those actors racist? Of course not. Will they think twice about topics that could be hilarious but might trigger audiences?
Absolutely.
Critics should also diversify their news and Twitter feeds. Someone feasting on HuffPo, The New York Times or Keith Olbermann’s social media musings might not realize there’s half the country eager for woke-free content or, conversely, exhausted by cinematic lectures.
They also risk alienating half their readership. That’s a disconnect that’s damaging to their mission statement.
We all know Twitter isn’t real life. The same holds true, perhaps even more so, for Film Twitter.
Critics aren’t as allergic to genre fare as in the past, but it’s still important to meet a film halfway. A comedy-horror romp doesn’t demand the same interpretation as an Oscar-bait drama based on recent history.
Professional critics often walk in lockstep on a given film, and it can be hard to go against the professional tide. Do it, assuming it comes organically to the project in question. Groupthink impacts plenty of professions, and it ultimately does audiences little good.
Richard Roeper blasted his fellow critics for <a href="https://www.hollywoodintoto.com/roeper-critics-ghostbusters-biased/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">grading the 2016 dud “Ghostbusters” on a curve</a>, hoping to buoy the feminist film’s fortunes. He has a point, and it’s hardly the only time critics sang from a very similar hymnal without firm footing.
Perhaps the best way to reconnect with general audiences is literally meet them on their turf. Ask questions following a movie screening about what they liked, and loathed, about a film. Track social media for instant, honest observations. You don’t have to agree with every sentiment. Chances are you’ll disagree with plenty.
It’s still one way to make sure you’re on a similar wavelength to the average movie goer. Pleasing the customer, as best a critic can, should remain job no. 1.
Christian Toto is an award-winning journalist, movie critic and editor of <a href="http://www.hollywoodintoto.com/">HollywoodInToto.com</a>. He previously served as associate editor with Breitbart News&#8217; Big Hollywood. Follow him at <a href="https://twitter.com/HollywoodInToto?lang=en">@HollywoodInToto</a>. 
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and not necessarily those of The Daily Wire.

81st Annual Academy Awards – Overhead Arrivals

How Leftist Film Critics Are Driving A Wedge Between Fans And Filmmakers

Film Reviews

Movies

Readers Pass

Top Gun

Glenn Close received an Oscar nomination for her role in &#8220;Hillbilly Elegy,&#8221; while also garnering a nomination for a Golden Raspberry (Razzie) award for the same role.
Razzies are notoriously known as the film awards that people are given for a bad performance, rather than honored for the best. Close was nominated for a &#8220;worst supporting actress&#8221; Razzie award alongside Lucy Hale and Maggie Q in Fantasy Island, Kristen Wiig in Wonder Woman 1984 and Maddie Ziegler in Music. As for the Academy Awards, Close received a &#8220;best actress in a supporting role&#8221; nomination next to Maria Bakalova in Borat Subsequent Moviefilm, Olivia Colman in The Father, Amanda Seyfried in Mank and Yuh-Jung Youn in Minari.
The double-nomination might not come as a surprise for those who followed the release of the film. Critics widely condemned Ron Howard&#8217;s adaptation of J.D. Vance&#8217;s memoir, “Hillbilly Elegy,” that was released in 2016. The book tells the story of Vance&#8217;s own journey growing up amidst poverty and drug addiction in Appalachia to go on to become a Yale Law School graduate. The book was seen as an insight into the parts of the country that may have felt forgotten by coastal elites.
In the film, Close plays the role of Bonnie &#8220;Mamaw&#8221; Vance, who helps the young J.D. overcome obstacles and teaches him how to work hard in order to improve his life situation. The character was seen by some as an embodiment of the white, working class in America.
On the film ratings site, <a href="https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/hillbilly_elegy/reviews?intcmp=rt-what-to-know_read-critics-reviews">Rotten Tomatoes</a>, the movie received a 25% from critical reviews but holds an 85% approval from audience members. On the site, critics described the movie as &#8220;the most laughable movie of 2020,&#8221; &#8220;objectively terrible,&#8221; and accused it of &#8220;feeding stereotypes.&#8221; One critic even said it &#8220;should be a eulogy for Howard&#8217;s career.&#8221;
<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/23/movies/hillbilly-elegy-review.html">The New York Times&#8217; review</a> of the film said that the movie is &#8220;too tasteful, too sensitive for its own good, studiously unwilling to be as wild or provocative as its characters,&#8221; adding that the moral of the film&#8217;s story &#8220;is that success in America means growing up to be less interesting than your parents or grandparents.&#8221; Mentioning Mamaw&#8217;s character, the review concludes, &#8220;The best thing I can say about this movie is also the most damning, given Mamaw’s proud indifference to anyone’s good opinion of her. It’s respectable.&#8221;
Vance, who was involved with the making of the adaption, was not surprised by the negative reviews of the film, citing politics as the reason that many Hollywood insiders panned it.
“A lot of people don’t like me personally, my politics and things I’ve said publicly,” Vance told <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/hillbilly-elegy-author-movie-critics-might-want-to-look-in-the-mirror">The Daily Wire</a>. “That reverberated onto the movie a little bit, even though the movie is a different animal … it cuts out a lot of the socio-political commentary.”
While actors have been nominated for an Oscar and Razzie in the same year, they have never had the nomination for the same role. According to <a href="https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/glenn-close-receives-oscar-and-razzie-nomination-for-the-same-role">The Hollywood Reporter</a>, &#8220;In 2010, Sandra Bullock won the best actress Academy Award for her role in The Blind Side, and also received two Razzies for other films.&#8221;
Close has been nominated for an Academy Award eight times but has never received a win.

1DDCDB4D-2B46-4C1C-A571-9A45078959DB_1_201_a

Glenn Close Gets Razzie And Oscar Nomination For ‘Hillbilly Elegy’ Role

Oscars

Sometimes it takes a personal attack to turn someone into an activist.
Consider J.K. Rowling, the progressive author who took a stand against Cancel Culture when <a href="https://www.hollywoodintoto.com/what-is-cancel-culture/">it turned on her</a> … with a vengeance. Woke comic Sarah Silverman decried losing a film role for a <a href="https://www.hollywoodintoto.com/will-arnett-non-liberals-racist-hateful/">problematic gag</a> from her comedy past.
Even <a href="https://www.hollywoodintoto.com/open-letter-jim-gaffigan-trump-support/">Trump Derangement Syndrome sufferer Jim Gaffigan</a> got a wake-up call when one of his films <a href="https://www.hollywoodintoto.com/jim-gaffigan-woke-film-critics/">got attacked</a> for focusing on, gasp, male characters.
Is it Ron Howard’s turn for a cultural wake up call?
The Oscar-winning director is a driving force behind “Hillbilly Elegy,” the film adaptation of J.D. Vance’s bestselling memoir of his Appalachian roots. The Netflix movie entered awards season as a bona fide contender until <a href="https://www.indiewire.com/2020/11/amy-adams-reacts-negative-hillbilly-elegy-reviews-1234601285/">film critics excoriated</a> every aspect of the film.
The attacks <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/11/hillbilly-elegy-doesnt-reflect-the-appalachia-i-know/617228/">have been relentless</a>. One outlet demanded Netflix subscribers <a href="https://www.cincinnati.com/story/opinion/2020/11/30/opinion-were-not-going-watch-hillbilly-elegy-and-we-hope-you-wont-either/6428133002/">avoid the movie, period</a>. That was one of the more gentle broadsides, to be fair.
Amy Adams, who stars as the drug-addled Bev, took a <a href="https://www.indiewire.com/2020/11/amy-adams-reacts-negative-hillbilly-elegy-reviews-1234601285/">diplomatic posture.</a>
“I think the themes of this movie are very universal,” Adams said. “Whether it be generational trauma, whether it be just examining where we come from to understand where we’re going and who we are. I think the universality of the themes of the movie far transcend politics.”
Howard, in comparison, is taking a <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/ron-howard-criticism-hillbilly-elegy-apolitical-leaving-out-elements-book">more aggressive approach</a> to the blowback.
“Critics have a job, which is to see something and run it through their lens and talk about it. So, I can’t argue with it,” he explained. “I do feel like they’re looking at political thematics that they may or may not disagree with that, honestly, are not really reflected or are not front and center in this story.”
Howard told reporters during a cyber press conference he <a href="https://www.hollywoodintoto.com/hillbilly-elegy-ron-howard-vanessa-taylor/">intentionally stripped away the memoir’s political leanings</a>.
He sought to focus on the story, not culture war debates.
“What I saw was a family drama that could be very relatable. Yes, culturally specific, and if you’re fascinated by that, I hope you find it interesting,” he added. “If you’re from the region, I hope you find it authentic because certainly that was our aim and that was our effort. But I felt that it was a bridge to understanding that we’re more alike than we are different.”
That suggests a message that film critics, who adore identity politics, weren’t eager to embrace. It may be why that community similarly slammed “<a href="https://www.hollywoodintoto.com/critics-green-book-white-savior/">Green Book</a>,” “The Best of Enemies,” and “<a href="https://www.hollywoodintoto.com/movie-reviews-onward-burden/">Burden</a>” for their hopeful messaging.
Yes, “Green Book” won the Best Picture Oscar, but not without a wave of angry think pieces from the film critic community.
Today’s critics are more keen on victimization stories than ones where the heroes pull themselves up by their proverbial bootstraps. Any film suggesting a right-leaning message, alas, endures the wrath of film critics. That community leans decidedly to the Left.
It doesn’t help that the “Hillbilly Elegy” memoir came from Vance, a right-leaning critic of social welfare programs.
It’s worth noting Howard is both an avowed liberal and a show business veteran. He started his career on “The Andy Griffith Show,” struck sitcom gold, again, with “Happy Days,” and segued to directing hits like “A Beautiful Mind” and “Apollo 13.”
He’s got a thick skin. It’s impossible to survive in Hollywood for nearly six decades without one. Yet he chose to challenge “Elegy’s” critics anyway.
That means something in and of itself.
A version of this article can be found at HollywoodInToto.com.
The views expressed in this opinion piece are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

Ron Howard

Red Pill In Progress? Ron Howard Calls Out Political Film Critics

Hollywood

J.D. Vance isn’t a movie critic, but he’s a quick study on how that industry thinks.
Vance wrote the celebrated “Hillbilly Elegy” in 2016, a memoir detailing how his Appalachian roots both shaped and hindered his quest for the American Dream.
Now, he’s promoting the Netflix film adaptation of the book, directed by Oscar winner Ron Howard and starring Amy Adams and Glenn Close. The movie appeared ripe for Oscar glory, at least on paper, until the <a href="https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/hillbilly_elegy">vast majority of critics trashed it.</a> And then some.
“Problematic.” “Inauthentic.” “Depressing.” “Unwatchable.”
One scribe <a href="https://www.cincinnati.com/story/opinion/2020/11/30/opinion-were-not-going-watch-hillbilly-elegy-and-we-hope-you-wont-either/6428133002/">begged Netflix subscribers</a> not watch the movie … at all.
Seem harsh? Howard himself said as much recently, suggesting critics viewed the movie through a <a href="https://www.hollywoodintoto.com/ron-howard-political-film-critics-hillbilly-elegy/">political, not critical lens.</a> 
Does Adams or Close don a MAGA hat in the movie? That’s not the issue. Vance is a Christian author who leans to the right, even if he’s not a Trump booster. His 2016 book critiqued social welfare programs, putting him in some cultural critics’ cross hairs.
For all those reasons, Vance says he “expected” the political fallout from the critical class.
“A lot of people don’t like me personally, my politics and things I’ve said publicly,” Vance tells The Daily Wire. “That reverberated onto the movie a little bit, even though the movie is a different animal &#8230; it cuts out a lot of the socio-political commentary.”
Howard, Vance says, didn’t expect what he clearly saw coming from the chattering class.
Some liberal scribes greeted Vance’s memoir with a dollop of understanding upon its release, hoping to learn more about a part of the country too often ignored or dismissed. Back then, many media outlets framed “Hillbilly Elegy” as an explainer, of sorts, for Donald Trump’s shocking rise and victory.
The climate is far different after four years of President Trump, Vance says.
“After the 2016 election, everyone was interested in working class white stories. That’s shifted. They’re not as interested in investigating that part of the country [as much now].”
The timing for the book proved prescient. The same proved the opposite for the film version, he adds.
“That bothers me,” Vance says, but not for egotistical reasons. Appalachia still suffers from the opioid epidemic and economic woes that plagued the region back in 2016. The culture’s empathy for the region, though, has diminished since then.
Vance, who enlisted in the Marine Corps and later served in Iraq, wasn’t sure he even wanted Hollywood to transform his story into a feature film. The industry came calling, though, eager to leverage the memoir’s success.
“I didn’t want to talk to them,” he says. He softened when Howard approached him.
“I just really liked him,” he says of the Oscar-winning director despite their political differences. Howard recently assembled the old “Happy Days” cast to <a href="https://people.com/tv/happy-days-cast-reunite-virtual-table-read/">raise money for Wisconsin Democrats</a>. “He was really taken by the people in the book.”
The two spent some time together, and Vance read early drafts of the “Hillbilly Elegy” script that increased his comfort level.
“You have to accept the process … you don’t have full creative control and go with it,” says Vance, who still shared an executive producer credit on the film. “You’re always worried something will go wrong.”
“Hillbilly Elegy” proved a literary sensation four years ago, but the film version’s release proved how different the two media can be. Vance has been flooded with often “intense” messages from people in recent days who watched the movie and rushed to reach out to him.
“The book is so personal they feel they can open up to you, how tough some people have had it,” he says.
Vance says there’s another reason the book and the movie caused such a kerfuffle. Pop culture doesn’t address the issues he explored often enough. 
How many films and TV shows are set in Los Angeles, he asks with a laugh. The issue expands far beyond the working white class featured in his memoir, epitomized by Close’s larger-than-life take on Vance’s “Mamaw.”
“The entertainment industry would do well by doing what Ron [Howard] did, take interesting stories from the middle of the country and tell more about them,” he says.
It’s why the outsized critical backlash deserves greater scrutiny. The “Audience Score” for “Hillbilly Elegy” is an impressive 82 percent “fresh” at RottenTomatoes.com, the most notable critic aggregator site.
The RT critics, in stark comparison, gave it a 25 percent “rotten” rating.
That “disconnect” is real, Vance says, adding critics might want to “look in the mirror” to reassess if they’re reflecting the communities they claim to represent.
“I don’t think they will,” he notes.
Vance says Howard’s artistic instincts, in both seeking out Vance’s story and stripping away the memoir’s political DNA, speak to a larger issue. Appalachia may not get many Hollywood closeups, but the region has a sizable impact on the culture at large.
People assume Appalachia is a “radically different place” than the rest of the country. It’s also larger than many think, <a href="https://www.arc.gov/about-the-appalachian-region/">spanning 205,000 square miles across 13 states.</a>
He notes that West Virginia transformed from a solid blue state to a rock-ribbed Republican region in recent years, the only state that’s “fully within the Appalachia region,” he notes.
Consider the crush of <a href="https://www.blueridgemusicnc.com/about/appalachian-music">country music artists</a>, poets and writers who all either come from that part of the country or were deeply influenced by it.
“The cultural influence of the region extends far beyond specific mountains,” he says.

J.D. Vance

‘Hillbilly Elegy’ Author: Movie Critics Might Want To ‘Look In The Mirror’

The team behind director Ron Howard’s “Hillbilly Elegy” foolishly thought they’d crash awards season this year.
Netflix’s take on J.D. Vance’s 2016 best-selling memoir features Oscar-bait performances by Amy Adams and an unrecognizable Glenn Close as the family matriarch.
They didn’t realize a one-two punch awaited them, all but guaranteeing their film won’t make much, if any, noise when the nominations are revealed.
Their tragic mistake? They told a story sympathetic to the same Rural USA which helped elect Donald Trump four years ago. Even worse? They did so at a time when both critics and Academy voters have little patience for tales told outside the progressive bubble.
When Vance’s memoir first hit book stores, open-hearted progressives yearned to learn more about a part of the country which embraced Trump’s message. The book charted Vance’s journey from poverty-stricken Kentucky to the halls of academia.
That was then. Now, anything remotely tied to President Trump is like garlic to a vampire.
The trouble technically began weeks before “Hillbilly Elegy’s” November debut. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts &amp; Sciences released new rules regarding films eligible for the Best Picture award, the most coveted Oscar of all.
The Academy went woke, demanding “diversity” requirements in front of and behind the camera along with dictates about the content itself.
<blockquote>The standards are designed to encourage equitable representation on and off screen in order to better reflect the diversity of the movie-going audience.</blockquote>
It’s a <a href="https://www.oscars.org/news/academy-establishes-representation-and-inclusion-standards-oscarsr-eligibility">complicated rule book</a>, but one way to comply is to tell a story that addresses a woke theme. Think a gay couple navigating modern America, or a civil rights drama evoking mid-20th century racism.
Here’s the official statement from Team Oscar on that subject:
<blockquote>The main storyline(s), theme or narrative of the film is centered on an underrepresented group(s). 
• Women 
• Racial or ethnic group 
• LGBTQ+ 
• People with cognitive or physical disabilities, or who are deaf or hard of hearing</blockquote>
Suffice it to say, a white man’s journey from Appalachia to Yale University, like Vance’s life story, wouldn’t make the cut.
That’s just one facet of “Hillbilly Elegy’s” problem—even if the new Oscar rules unofficially start in 2022 but aren’t enforced until 2024. It’s unlikely voters will ignore the new rules just to sneak “Elegy” in, though.
The second problem is more entrenched and doesn’t require a fancy rulebook.
Modern film writers lean reliably to the Left, and they carry considerable clout during awards season. A film can live or die by its reviews, especially this time of year.
“Hillbilly Elegy” sits with an <a href="https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/hillbilly_elegy">anemic 25 percent “rotten” rating</a> at RottenTomatoes.com, a withering score for an Oscar-bait film. Last year’s “Bombshell” snuck into the Oscar race despite a <a href="https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/bombshell_2019">mediocre 68 percent</a> “fresh” rating at the site, which aggregates critical takes. The film’s blistering attack on Fox News made up for lukewarm reviews.
“Elegy’s” awful RT score hints at the issue critics have with the movie.
Critics and film reporters alike are savaging “Elegy” in ways that connect beyond its cinematic qualities. For starters, they can’t separate the movie from the book, even though in many ways they’re very different creations.
Here’s just <a href="https://www.vulture.com/2020/11/who-is-netflixs-hillbilly-elegy-for.html">one example from Vulture.com</a>:
<blockquote>The book is poverty porn wrapped in a right-wing message about the cultural pathologies of the region. In Vance’s Appalachia, poverty and immorality intertwine. Success happens to hard-working people, and structural explanations for poverty receive glancing attention when he chooses to mention them at all.</blockquote>
That’s Vance’s opinion based on his life experiences, but to this reporter they’re beyond the pale. And, by extension, the movie is as well.
Boston Review <a href="http://bostonreview.net/arts-society/ellen-wayland-smith-mythic-whiteness-hillbilly">slapped both the film and the book</a> with the “white privilege” curse, even though Vance’s roots are the furthest cry of anything remotely resembling “privilege.”
The far-Left New Yorker critic slammed the movie as a “libertarian fantasy.”
The Hollywood Reporter said the <a href="https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/hillbilly-elegy-caught-between-hollywood-and-a-hard-place">quiet parts out loud</a> in its “Elegy” assessment. The far-left site says the project “was greenlit when liberal creatives were trying to understand the other side, but a total avoidance of political substance is what ultimately undermines the film&#8217;s awards chances.”
The subtext needs to be said. A film all but requires a progressive message to help it win an Oscar. When voters crave “political substance,” it means narratives with which they agree.
Is it any wonder New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo just earned an Emmy award for his COVID-19 press conferences?
It’s also tragic that Oscar voters no longer crave great stories in the grand Hollywood tradition. The films in question must come pre-loaded with political themes from a subset of “available” topics.
Think systemic racism, pro-choice causes, and income inequality as just three possible examples.
The Hollywood Reporter story concludes on a chilling note:
<blockquote>Hollywood has yet to start greenlighting movies that attempt to speak to the Americans who voted for Trump a second time, but Hillbilly Elegy may serve as a cautionary tale. A movie that posed Vance’s conservative cultural critiques more directly likely would not have gotten made in the first place in Hollywood.</blockquote>
Hollywood does more than prevent openly conservative stars from staying employed (with a few exceptions including Jon Voight and Nick Searcy). They now recoil at the notion of making right-of-center stories, to take The Hollywood Reporter at its word.
Let that sink in. Today’s Hollywood avoids stories that appeal to one half of the country. That makes a mockery of the term show business, no?
Howard, who is openly liberal, <a href="https://www.hollywoodintoto.com/hillbilly-elegy-ron-howard-vanessa-taylor/">intentionally avoided political red meat</a> while shooting “Hillbilly Elegy,” according to a recent press conference tied to the film. That’s pragmatic on a number of levels, including Storytelling 101. Audiences can glean whatever socio-economic lessons they wish from the movie, a sure sign of a storyteller trusting the audience.
Howard has been telling stories since he was a lad on “The Andy Griffith Show,” and his instincts remain pure.
Then again, the Oscar-winning director was in a no-win situation with “Hillbilly Elegy.” If he openly celebrated “Small Town” values, he would have been pilloried by the press even worse than what he actually experienced.
If he went in reverse, and used “Hillbilly Elegy” to mock rural America, he would have betrayed the book and his own instincts.
He might have stood a better chance at winning his second Best Director Oscar with the latter path. As is, he has little reason to draft an Oscar acceptance speech.
He won’t be needing it.
The views expressed in this opinion piece are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

Oscars statue

‘Hillbilly Elegy’ Shows How Hollywood Keeps Conservatives From The Oscar Party

Author J.D. Vance threw a culture war smart bomb at us four years ago.
His 2016 memoir “Hillbilly Elegy” dared to take flyover country seriously, causing shock waves in and out of polite society following Donald Trump’s electoral victory.
The tome disparaged the welfare state and addressed class more than race, connecting Vance’s impoverished youth to that of his neighbors. He had no patience for identity politics, and “Elegy” offered a respite from the toxic trend.
If the memoir hit shelves today, not four years ago, the outrage would have been stronger, more censorial.
Still, “Hillbilly Elegy” stood out for its honesty and the quality of the author’s voice. The media offered up some grudging respect, even while staying suspicious of Vance’s motives.
It also gave clueless progressives a new talking point – “is this why Trump won?”
The inevitable film adaptation, commandeered for Neflix by Oscar winner Ron Howard, strains to avoid more culture war dustups.
That’s probably wise.
A signifier here, a speech there, would have taken us right out of an otherwise compelling yarn. The messages Vance left us with are still plain to see, but the focus is on characters who rarely grace screens these days.
They’re not being mocked, mind you, nor glorified in condescending fashion. It’s a deeply personal saga that will register with anyone tied to their own flawed families.
And Vance’s clan has enough flaws to fill out a two-hour drama, no doubt.
Gabriel Basso (“Super 8”) stars as the adult Vance, a promising student hoping to secure his version of the American dream. That won’t be easy, as Howard’s film relentlessly flashes back to Vance’s rural upbringing.
He split his youth between homes in Ohio and Kentucky, but it’s the latter that left an indelible mark. The Vance clan grew up poor but proud, a loyal flock that took care of each other while dragging themselves down at the same time.
That spirit personifies Bev (Amy Adams), a single mother grappling with two children, a string of ne’er do well beaus and addiction.
An unrecognizable Glenn Close plays the rock of the family, a stern but loving gal named Mamaw (a nickname that sounds different every time it’s spoken).
Vance grew up and away, avoiding the tractor pull of family dysfunction. As a Yale law student, he stood on the cusp of success and a possible marriage with the supportive Usha (Freida Pinto). His family, in the grand “Godfather” tradition, keep pulling him back.
Could his meticulously arranged escape plan crumble?
Howard’s directorial career is marked by box office success, an Oscar triumph (“A Beautiful Mind”) and a lack of hard edges. Perhaps that’s why Vance, an executive producer on the film, and his colleagues chose Howard for the task at hand.
Another filmmaker might have jumped atop a soapbox throughout the story, weighing in on universal health care, government handouts, and more. Not Howard, despite his off-screen liberalism. His cinematic lens still captures the raw beauty of Appalachia as well as its dark underbelly.
Visually, “Hillbilly Elegy” hums with excitement, even in more tender moments.
The focus remains on the Vance/Bev/Mamaw triumvirate, with the respective actors delivering the necessary nuance. Bev is a force of nature, fiercely proud but unable to step back and see the wreckage she’s left behind.
Close’s Mamaw can be cold and cutting, but her big picture lessons matter. “Elegy” is a love letter to her comically arranged soul, a “thank you” for the consistent love she delivered.
Howard, bless his heart, leaves plenty of her unsavory tics intact, staring with the cigarette that dangles from her lip in every scene.
Basso’s Vance isn’t nearly as charismatic, or forceful, but his steadiness is a testament to his Kentucky values. He scarfs down a fried bologna sandwich without a hint of twee sentiment. It’s a taste of his childhood, and it’s still delicious all these years later.
He wouldn’t have it any other way.
Other scenes feel less authentic, like whenever the young Vance (Owen Asztalos) proves his clumsiness for all to see. Howard should know better than to stage these scenes in an equally clumsy fashion.
“Elegy” delves into Bev’s drug abuse, shown in brief but telling moments. The subject deserves far more attention from Hollywood, but Howard’s lens does a yeoman’s like job sketching out the opioid menace.
It’s fair to say “Hillbilly Elegy” should have been a limited series, not a feature-length movie. Howard does all he can to drop us into Vance’s different worlds, but a slower pace – with finer details – would have been more appropriate.
Vance’s ties to Usha, for example, scream for more screen time. We’re also told Bev was a stellar student, but that intelligence is bludgeoned by her miscues, told via awards season emoting.
As is, “Hillbilly Elegy” reminds us it’s impossible to completely sever family ties, no matter how far you travel or the glories within reach.
“Hillbilly Elegy” is in select theaters now and debuts on Netflix Nov. 24.

Glenn Close

Howard’s ‘Hillbilly Elegy’ Keeps The Focus On Story, Not Culture Wars

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