On July 15, local time, 39-year-old Ohio Senator JD Vance was chosen by presidential candidate Donald Trump to be his running mate. On the same day, Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis, a film based on Vance's memoir, immediately jumped to sixth place on Netflix's top ten movie list. On July 15, its viewership on Netflix reached 19.2 million minutes, an increase of 1,179% compared to the 1.5 million minutes watched on July 14.
Poster for "Hillbilly Elegy"
Vance was born in Ohio on August 2, 1984. After graduating from high school, he served in the army and worked as a war correspondent in the Iraq War. After retiring, he entered Ohio State University to study political science and philosophy, and later obtained a doctorate in law from Yale Law School. In 2016, he, who is mainly a venture capitalist in the technology industry, used his spare time to write a memoir, "Hillbilly Elegy", which presents the life difficulties of blue-collar families in the so-called "Rust Belt" (a once glorious but declining industrial area) in the United States.
"Hillbilly Elegy" presents the environment and process of Vance's growth.
After the book was published, it became a blockbuster and was listed on the New York Times bestseller list in both 2016 and 2017. It was also called by the media as "one of the six best books to help readers understand why Trump won the election." Later, Ron Howard, who directed "Apollo 13" and "A Beautiful Mind", adapted it into a movie, starring well-known Hollywood actors Amy Adams and Glenn Close, and it was released on Netflix on November 24, 2020.
However, the film "Hillbilly Elegy" failed to gain recognition from the media after it was released. Many film critics even believe that the film is definitely the "worst work" in director Ron Howard's career, and its freshness on the film review collection website "Rotten Tomatoes" is only 25%. In the awards season of that year, although Glenn Close, who played the role of the grandmother in the film, received multiple nominations including the Golden Globe Award, the Screen Actors Guild Award, and the American Critics' Choice Award, she was also nominated for the Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Supporting Actress. In addition, the film was also nominated for the Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Director and Worst Screenplay.
Hillbilly Elegy was met with generally negative reviews from critics.
Just like the dramatic increase in the number of views of the film on online platforms, the paperback version of the original novel "Hillbilly Elegy" also topped the Amazon best-selling book list on July 16, and the hardcover version ranked second on the hardcover book bestseller list.
