Hillbilly Elegy as the American Dream
By: Archbridge Institute
Tags: Hillbilly Elegy, Movie Review, American Dream, Social Mobility, Human Flourishing

Credit: Lacey Terrell/NETFLIX

By: Gonzalo Schwarz

Literary critics have always misunderstood the book Hillbilly Elegy and now the movie critics have done the same with the Netflix release of the outstanding movie by Ron Howard based on JD Vance’s best seller and inspiring life story.

The critics’ opinion of the movie could hardly be more different than the audience reviews. Whenever I see that a movie has such opposite scores, I always tend toward wanting to watch it even more. In this case, the Rotten Tomato score of 27 percent and the audience score of 86 percent is case in point.

There are too many terrible critic reviews to highlight them all, but a couple of examples of the worst ones where you can see people trying their hardest to inflict the most scorn on the movie are as follows:

“Hillbilly Elegy is an Oscar-friendly narrative of personal triumph in the face of great hardship, a movie designed to end with an uplifting epigraph; it is also one of the worst movies of the year.” Or,

“There’s only a vague message about bootstraps and personal responsibility, and a whole lot of bad wigs.”

The positive audience reviews on the other hand, far outweigh the negative critical reviews and paint so vastly different a picture that it is almost like people were watching two separate movies:

“Honestly a really inspiring movie. I could hardly believe it was a true story. If you want a movie to motivate you or just bring on a few tears watch this one.” Or,

“Great movie. Was absolutely shocked when I saw the critic review section. Something is wrong with those people!”

I belong squarely in the positive review camp and my only criticism, having read the book when it first came out and watching the movie now, is that by focusing mostly on his mom’s side of the story, the movie really shows just one part of JD Vance’s life and not the many different angles that could have been relevant. But it did depict those specific episodes in his life almost exactly how JD told us about them in the book, which is sometimes too much to expect from Hollywood.

The direction, production, and overall acting was phenomenal. In an ideal world, many of the actors in the movie should be up for academy awards. However, I don’t think this will happen as the divide we see reflected in the critical reviews comes more from the journalist, intellectual, and cultural class, who have chosen to find meaning in politics instead of anywhere else in their lives. They seem eager to find fault with many of Vance’s more conservative stances on policy issues and continue to disdain the other half of America that they don’t seem to understand, at least not well. All of this says more about the critics than it says about the general audience or even JD Vance’s story.

His story, both in the book and the movie, is far bigger and more important than mere politics. It’s a deeply human story, a story of the imperfect people we all are, but an aspirational story in which you really have to be so blinded by ideology and politics if you can’t see the big picture and moving narrative behind it.

When the book Hillbilly Elegy first came out, one review said it was just another personal agency story. Personal or human agency is the belief that an individual has the capacity to improve his own condition. Isn’t that all that matters? That you really want to (and can) give yourself the best chance to succeed. Agency means you are in control of your own life and get to make your own choices. Sometimes there are certainly many barriers in the way to achieving your goals. But the point of having personal agency is that you can overcome those barriers. It means not caving to things you cannot control and just focusing on the ones you can.

Bootstrapping and personal agency are not about going at it alone, however. It is mainly about taking personal responsibility over your own life because no one else would do it for you and believing in your ability to pursue your own happiness and dreams. It does not mean that you do not have people around you that help you, be it family, friends, or a community. It means that you have a meaning you seek to pursue and you set your own path, usually with different people as part of your support system that keeps you going, either directly motivating you or just indirectly inspiring you. The Hillbilly Elegy story is that story of personal responsibility within a support system. Some supporters of the bootstrapping story as a purely individualistic affair will give all the credit to Vance and just say, ‘see, that is the old American way.’ But while Vance clearly tells his life story as one of personal agency and bootstrapping, it includes a clear support system of people who loved him despite being imperfect in their own ways, as all of us are. It is a story of his own family, a community, and a culture that prepared him for the moments where he needed to make important decisions in his life that paved the way for bigger and more opportunities.

JD Vance’s life is a true American Dream story because the vision of the United States is about being able to live better, richer, and fuller lives, regardless of where you’re coming from. But the path is often rocky because life is complex and human beings are imperfect. It was true in the case of the start of this republic, and it was true in the case of the revolutionary and civil wars. And it was true in the case of JD Vance with an imperfect family and an imperfect support system but at the end of the day, it was a support system that worked and cultivated a willingness and sense personal agency enabling the moves forward. That is the JD Vance story, that is the American story, and that is also my story. And because that story is not unique to any one person in America but to many people across the country, it makes everything about it all the more special.

As my colleague Ben Wilterdink recently wrote: “Clearly, motivational power is an essential component affecting an individual’s capacity and willingness to engage in goal-directed or self-regulatory behavior — the kinds of behaviors necessary to achieve success. Moreover, beliefs about personal agency have a direct influence on that motivational power. It’s not easy to measure the effect of cultural messages on individuals’ beliefs, but there is certainly reason to think that some such connection exists — particularly when those messages are coming from the venerated institutions of higher education and elite journalism.”

The cultural narrative around personal agency is a powerful thing that has and can continue to shape the future of the country. You can be a cynic, a critic, or a nihilist. But at the end of the day, all we can control is that sense of personal agency that allows us to move forward and take control of our lives — despite any barriers we encounter along the way. JD Vance and his entire family gave us a masterclass in such efforts, both through the book and the movie.

Gonzalo Schwarz is the Founder and CEO of the Archbridge Institute, a Washington, D.C. based public policy think tank focused on removing barriers to human flourishing.