Hillbilly Elegy

— It’s always sad when a top notch director and first rate actors can’t carry a film I based on a pretty decent book, but that’s the case with “Hillbilly Elegy,” based on J.D. Vance’s book, directed by Ron Howard, and featuring Amy Adams and Glenn Close. It’s not bad, just disappointing—it iwould be fine as a movie of the week on a cable channel. It’s a look at three generators of dysfunction and one person who escapes the cycle. There’s a lot of screaming and a too many flashbacks, and too little focus on the rustbelt world so many people don’t understand, and it’s characteristic of being isolated and isolating. In the end, the film makes it clear the world from which we come makes us what we are, but our dreams and actions make us what we become. Unfortunately, this must seem like a hopeful misconception of the privileged to people living lives without hope. Some of the parts of this film are pretty good, but it doesn’t come together as well as I’d like. Sadly, I think this is one where too many of the original story’s nuances slipped away when the film was made. [Netflix streaming.]