J.D. Vance Hillbilly Elegy Netflix

I didn’t think that Hillbilly Elegy, being a long narrative about growing up in a holler, could turn into a film with immediacy, dialogue and action, but under the direction of Ron Howard, it did become a story that works on the big screen.  A grandmother (Glenn Close) wants her grandson , J.D. to become someone. J.D. without a father at home, an addicted mother, somehow manages to escape this world, get educated, and find a woman to love.  Still, it is a mournful elegy of a tough childhood and adolescence.  Having grown up in Appalachia, I could see some of my family and friends bump into the people in Hillbilly Elegy, and fit right in.  A story well-told with a message to all of us  about the importance of believing in oneself and becoming self-reliant and holding on to love for those in the past that made it possible.  Sometimes hard to find good stories that hold together in feature films these days. Thanks to Netflix for getting this one out to us.  I hope you find it, not delightful or fun of course, but important as a way of seeing the world through a different lens.