‘Hillbilly Elegy:’ Amy Adams, Glenn Close Star in First Trailer for Ron Howard’s Oscars Contender

Jordan Moreau
·1 min read
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“Hillbilly Elegy,” the next film from Oscar-winning director Ron Howard has released its first trailer.

Glenn Close and Amy Adams star in the drama, which focuses on a working-class family in the Appalachia region of the United States. The actors play a mother and daughter who struggle with finding work and raising their multi-generational family. The movie is told from the perspective of Adams’ character’s son, a Yale graduate who is forced to return to his hometown.

“I thought your momma was gonna be alright, be happy. I know I could’ve done better, but you gotta decide: You want to be somebody or not?” Close’s character says in the trailer, released on Wednesday morning.

The film is based on the New York Times best-selling memoir “Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis,” written by J.D. Vance in 2016. He wrote about the Appalachian values of his family and growing up in Middletown, Ohio, as part of a low-income family.

The cast includes Gabriel Basso, Haley Bennett, Freida Pinto, Bo Hopkins and Owen Asztalos. Vanessa Taylor, the Oscar-nominated screenwriter for “Shape of Water,” wrote the script. Howard, Brian Grazer, and Karen Lunder are producing for Imagine Entertainment, while Julie Oh and J.D. Vance will executive produce.

Imagine has been developing the movie since 2017 when it acquired the rights to Vance’s memoir. Netflix boarded the project in 2019 with a $45 million deal after winning a competitive bidding war to finance the film.

“Hillbilly Elegy” will be released on Netflix and in select theaters on Nov. 24.

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