Thread by @briebriejoy

Lots to say about the first 15 min of Hillbilly Elegy but I’d be remiss if I didn’t point out that he just “joked” that Whitney Houston sounds better with the volume turned down.

I have very little sympathy left for this character.

Also, he’s at a law school function at THE BEST LAW SCHOOL IN AMERICA, and the *tension* in the scene is that he might not get a summer job AT THE BEST FIRM IN AMERICA, because he can’t pick btwn Chardonnay and Cabernet blanc.

God forbid he go to the 2nd best one firm.

The movie pretends his ability to pay for school hinges on getting a summer job at this particular firm, but all the top firms pay the same, so not sure it matters if he knows which plate is his bread plate & what’s a fish fork.

(Also nearly everyone struggles with that stuff!)

As a Black woman who was once asked at a recruiting function “do you yacht?,” this framing feels overly indulgent. Like, the struggles are real! But they don’t bare a specific relationship to his particular (and legitimately difficult!) upbringing.

He also called his South Asian girlfriend his “spirit guide.”

This is like a Tyler Perry movie for white people. But less entertaining.

They don’t even try to make these characters sympathetic. It’s so lazy! I’m a human being, so I feel for the kid dealing with poverty. But the character has no depth. I’m supposed to think he’s “good” because he saved a turtle with a cracked shell but he’s kinda annoying.

Like, when an older kid said he should kill the turtle (bc the “bad” characters are cartoonishly evil), he didn’t just say no, he was like “the shell is still attached to the *insert scientific skeletal term*” and I’m like: that obsequious nerd stuff is why you’re bullied.

He has the vibe of a kid who thinks being precocious makes him superior.

Also, the flash backs are not effective. Everyone is dead before we learn more about there back story, at which point: who cares?

They “tell” us everything rather than showing it. Nothing interesting is dramatized. Not the alleged love between her and PeePaw. Not her addiction origin story.

PeePaw’s death was supposed to set her off and I don’t remember them really interacting at all.

So, JD’s mom marries this Asian American guy out of the blue, and it he scene where JD first sees him is coded as “weird” for JD which, I mean, if it’s weird for anyone it should be the guys kid who now has to live with this woman in the throes of addiction.

The step brother takes JD to the basement and it turns out it’s a grow house. He asks if JD wants to smoke and JD sneers and says “it’s a gateway drug!” Lol.

It weirdly otherizes the Asian character’s drug use which is odd in the context of the mother’s heroin addiction.

In the scene *

Their*

At the beginning of the movie JD told off the law firm snobs for referring to his people as rednecks, saying “we don’t use the term.” But his mom just called this new ex lover of hers a toothless hillbilly. 🤷🏾‍♀️

I think the problem is this should’ve been written as the mom’s story. Or the grandma’s story. But JD think’s he’s the interesting character because he went to Yale. The story isn’t those who got out. It’s the people who didn’t.

This is so bad. It’s worse than I expected.

JD needs a TI-84 for school. He can’t afford it. He tries to steal one & is caught. Grandma generously buys him one & JD throws it out the window of the car. It’s $80! His character is so poorly written he just seems like a brat.

Also not to nit pick, but this seems like a poor town. The school really expects everyone to buy this calculator?

Also, grandma is now trying to press the meals on wheels kid for an extra one bc she has no money and can’t afford her meds. It seems that was her last $80.

The movie presents this as the moment that inspires JD to start working hard in school. Like, *now* he gets it. Adults sacrifice for children.

It manages to take such important issues and treat them so superficially. It’s just so cartoonishly basic.

Adult JD is talking about how much his grandma meant to him and, once again, I wish they had dramatized a single minute of their *relationship* rather than just conflict.

This guy wrote his book 3 years after graduating. Who asked for this?

I need to turn in my book proposal.

Just spent 20 min explaining to my brother all the ways this movie could’ve been better by using The Color Purple as a model. Don’t watch this. Watch The Color Purple.

My brother and I, 14 hours later, are still breaking down the ways in which this movie was bad lol.