Ep609: The Next GREEN BOOK?

Our Thanksgiving-week look at oddball family movies continues with one of the year’s most unpleasant yet strangely compelling films. Keeping it Reel's David Fowlie joins Ian for a spoilerific review of Ron Howard’s latest drama, Hillbilly Elegy, which is now streaming on Netflix.

Glenn Close and Amy Adams star as a mother/daughter duo struggling against generations of poverty and abuse to raise a thirteen-year-old boy (Owen Asztalos) in late-90s rural Ohio. The kid defies all odds to become a promising law student (played as an adult by Gabriel Basso) at Yale, but a family crisis draws him back into his dark past and threatens to jeopardize his future.

The movie has been trashed by critics and not warmly embraced by audiences, and Ian and David delve into why that may be, offering some stern criticisms of their own while also heaping praise in the scant places where it’s due. They also revisit their conversations about unlikable characters and unworthy Oscar winners to give their Hillbilly Elegy discussion a deeper context that’s missing in other coverage of the film.

Episode 609 has no trouble social distancing from this family for the holidays!

Show Guide:

Intro Music: 0:00 - 0:14

Intro: 0:14 - 2:29

Hillbilly Elegy Trailer: 2:51 - 4:44

Hillbilly Elegy Discussion: 4:44 - 1:05:55

Outro Music: 1:05:55 - 1:06:11

Keep up with the latest seat-kicking goodness by following, liking, rating, and subscribing to us on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, iTunes, Stitcher!