Hillbilly Elegy slammed as 'laughably horrendous' by critics

The reviews of Hillbilly Elegy are in, and critics are not holding back. The movie, based on J.D. Vance's 2016 memoir of the same name, generated headlines Tuesday including "Hillbilly Elegy is laughably horrendous in every way" and "Everything about Netflix's Hillbilly Elegy movie is awful."

The film follows J.D. Vance, a Yale Law student, as he returns to his Appalachian hometown where, in the words of Netflix, he "reflects on three generations of family history and his own future." Amy Adams plays Vance's mother, and Glenn Close plays his grandmother.

Vox's Alissa Wilkinson, a prolific critic who sees approximately a gazillion films a year, called Hillbilly Elegy "possibly the worst movie" she's watched in recent memory, and skewered the director, Ron Howard for making it "studiously unpolitical, not touching Trump or the election at all, presumably to appeal to the all-important 'broad audience.'" Here's what some other critics had to add:

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"…the thought of rewatching Howard's film ... is enough to qualify as post-traumatic stress disorder." [The Globe and Mail]"Nice guy Ron Howard tries so hard to make J.D. Vance look like less of an a--hole, but it can't be done." [David Ehrlich of Indiewire]"...An extended Oscar-clip montage in search of a larger purpose, an unwieldy slop bucket of door-smashing, child-slapping, husband-immolating histrionics." [Los Angeles Times]"It's just one more tired-a-- addiction drama, told by a nowhere doofus who thinks this all is somehow interesting, for no better reason than that it happened to him. What an absolute crock of s--t." [The Playlist]Nothing about this movie works, but it does offer some unexpected and unintended laughs. [Collider]"Is Cats better than Hillbilly Elegy? Yes. I could at least gleefully laugh at the former." [Robert Daniels]Really is that bad. [Kevin Fallon of The Daily Beast]

If that sounds like your thing, Hillbilly Elegy will be available to stream starting Nov. 24.

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Jeva Lange was the executive editor at TheWeek.com. She formerly served as The Week's deputy editor and culture critic. She is also a contributor to Screen Slate, and her writing has appeared in The New York Daily News, The Awl, Vice, and Gothamist, among other publications. Jeva lives in New York City. Follow her on Twitter.