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Los Angeles (AP) - Hillbillys are rednecks, backwoodsmen or white trash, that is, “white garbage”.
This is how the impoverished, white working class in the Midwest and rural areas of America is called derogatory.
JD Vance grew up there, in Middletown, Ohio, where there is little hope but more drugs, broken families and domestic violence.
When Vance wrote his memoir “Hillbilly Elegy.
The Story of My Family and a Society in Crisis "brings out the perfect timing.
The bestseller gives an insight into a layer that made Donald Trump's election victory possible at the time.
These people hold a grudge against the elite in Washington, betting on the outsider.
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Four years later - Trump has been voted out - director Ron Howard (66, “A Beautiful Mind”, “Apollo 13”) is now releasing the social drama “Hillbilly Elegy” in the cinema and on the Netflix streaming service.
It is told from the point of view of JD (Gabriel Basso), who somehow managed to jump first to the marines, then to law school at the elite university Yale.
But the broken family keeps catching up with him - and back to Ohio when his mother Bev almost dies of another heroin overdose.
Through his eyes and through flashbacks of his childhood, the viewer experiences a sad soap opera of three generations lost in drugs, drunkenness and violence.
JD quickly takes a back seat, Amy Adams (46) as his mother Bev and Glenn Close (73) as grandmother Mamaw steal the show from him.
With red-veined eyes, matted hair and slightly puffy Adams (46) is hardly recognizable.
Close is even more unrecognizable, with a gray wig, blotchy skin and sloppy sweaters.
She stares darkly through the oversized glasses.
The strict grandma, who constantly watches "Terminator 2" with her grandson and knocks out pithy slogans, gives JD support and refuge in the end.
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Oscar winner Howard often takes family conflicts to extremes in Hollywood fashion.
Less social criticism, more entertaining drama is his motto.
The German star composer Hans Zimmer provides the soundtrack, the script comes from the Oscar-nominated author Vanessa Taylor (“Shape of Water - The Whisper of Water”).
With this star power, "Hillbilly Elegy" is already being traded as an Oscar candidate.
Just as Amy Adams and Glenn Close go into their completely unglamorous roles, they are sure to be nominated for best leading and supporting actresses, predict US critics.
For Adams it would be the seventh nomination after films like “Vice”, “American Hustle” and “The Fighter”, so far it has always been empty.
Even Close has not yet won a trophy after seven Oscar chances, most recently with her leading role in “The Nobel Laureate's Wife”.
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Hillbilly Elegy