"Hillbilly Elegy" is "poverty-class cosplay" and "laughably bad" – reviews of Netflix's adaptations - Salon

Vance's Rust Belt memoir "Hillbilly Elegy," about his family's history of poverty in Appalachia, became a bipartisan bestseller in 2016, supposedly because it offered an explanation for who voted for a Trump's presidency.

Ron Howard directs Netflix's adaptation of Vance's memoir, written by Academy Award-nominated "The Shape of Water" scribe Vanessa Taylor.

Registering at only 27% on Rotten Tomatoes, "Hillbilly Elegy" has very few supporters.

ROLLING STONE "Hillbilly Elegy" Review: A bestselling memoir becomes Oscar-season B.S.

"Hence, we now have Ron Howard's 'Hillbilly Elegy,' a live-action rendering of various cartoonish aspects of Vance's book that strives for the Important Statement Seal of Approval," he writes. "The politically conservative, anti-welfare streak in the author's writing feels surgically removed; only the turbulence remains, smothered in the syrup (or 'syrrpp,' a Southern pronunciation that's affectionately mocked here) of seasonal treacle.

VOX: Everything about Netflix's Hillbilly Elegy movie is awful.

Among the biggest critiques, however, is that Howard's adaptation rings false and even lacks the convictions of Vance's memoir. .

THE PLAYLIST: The noxious "Hillbilly Elegy" is the year's most shameless film.

VANITY FAIR: "Hillbilly Elegy" Is shameless Oscar bait.

"The film leaves pretty much zero room for anything quotidian, anything usual, which might give the story some kind of subtle human texture, and make the dramatic stuff actually land with the intended impact.

WASHINGTON POST: "Hillbilly Elegy" is almost laughably bad — if it weren't so melodramatic

THE WRAP: "Hillbilly Elegy" Film Review: Ron Howard's rust belt saga is yokel hokum

INDIEWIRE: "Hillbilly Elegy" Review: Ron Howard adapts J.D

Vance's controversial memoir into a forgettable Netflix biopic

David Ehrlich acknowledges the film's yearnings as "for better or worse — exactly the kind of milquetoast and capital-'E' Empathetic movie you would expect a bunch of Hollywood liberals to make from Vance's memoir