Top Film Critic Says ‘Hillbilly Elegy’ Movie About JD Vance May Have Created a ‘Monster’

Getty Peter Debruge (l) and JD Vance (r).

A top film critic for industry trade publication Variety wrote in a July 16 article that the creators of the Netflix movie “Hillbilly Elegy,” which was based on Republican vice presidential candidate JD Vance’s book by the same name, may have created a “monster.”

In the article, Variety’s Chief Film Critic Peter Debruge wrote that Vance’s narrative attracted two “self-avowed liberals” to direct and produce the Netflix adaptation of his book – Ron Howard and Brian Grazer. Vance is the vice presidential nominee on the ticket with former President Donald Trump.

With the Netflix film, they “may have created a monster by legitimizing his origin story,” Debruge wrote, equating their actions to “The Apprentice” producer Mark Burnett, who elevated Trump through a business-oriented television show well before he ran for president.

“Hollywood loves a Horatio Alger story, and Vance’s poor-kid-makes-good arc fits squarely into Howard and Grazer’s sweet spot,” wrote Debruge. “By treating the book the way they had ‘Cinderella Man’ and ‘American Gangster,’ the Imagine Entertainment duo contributed to the mythmaking that got Vance elected to the U.S. Senate in 2022, even as they missed what ‘Hillbilly Elegy’ was really about.”

“Hillbilly Elegy,” which tells the story of Ohio Senator Vance’s impoverished upbringing with a drug-addicted mother, has been a key part of his biography, both on his U.S. Senate page and in his speech before the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, where he gave a shout-out to his mom, who watched from the audience. The book is available on Amazon.com.

“An urgent phone call pulls a Yale Law student back to his Ohio hometown, where he reflects on three generations of family history and his own future,” reads the Netflix blurb on “Hillbilly Elegy,” which starred Amy Adams, Glenn Close, and Gabriel Basso.

Debruge wrote that, in his book, “Vance used his personal experience (an upbringing that seemed the polar opposite of Trump’s) to explain the disconnect between Middle America and the coastal elites … to the coastal elites.”

But he argued that Vance later “joined their ranks,” getting a law degree from Yale University and running a Peter Thiel-backed venture capital fund.  DeBruge believes the book “served to explain to liberals why Trump would get elected that fall” of 2016. He also noted that Vance previously opposed Trump.

JD Vance Considered His Grandmother ‘Mamaw’ His ‘Saving Grace’ While Being Raised in Middletown, Ohio, According to His Senate Bio

GettyJD Vance.

“JD was born and raised in Middletown, Ohio, a once flourishing American manufacturing town where Ohioans could live content, middle-class lives on single incomes. Over time, many of those good jobs disappeared, and JD’s family suffered the effects along with many others,” his Senate bio says.

“Turbulence was common at home and at school. His grandmother, called Mamaw, was his saving grace. Her tough love and discipline kept him on the straight and narrow. A ‘blue dog’ Democrat, she owned 19 handguns and nurtured a deep Christian faith in herself and her family. She died in 2005, shortly after JD enlisted in the United States Marine Corps,” it continues.

“JD went on to serve our nation in the Iraq War, then graduated from The Ohio State University and Yale Law School. He wrote a bestselling book, Hillbilly Elegy, which was turned into a Netflix movie. He also started a business dedicated to growing jobs and opportunity in the American heartland,” the bio says.

Peter Debruge Has Worked for Variety Since 2005 & Covered the ‘International Festival Circuit’

GettyVariety’s Peter Debruge speaks onstage.

According to Variety, Debruge is “Chief Film Critic for Variety, where he has worked since 2005, including a two-year stint in Paris, when he focused on covering the international festival circuit.”

Variety wrote that Debruge “oversees a team of more than a dozen freelancers around the world, assigning and editing film reviews for the publication. He also curates the magazine’s annual ’10 Directors to Watch’ list.”

The publication notes: “Peter’s writing on film has appeared in such publications as Premiere, Life, Creative Screenwriting, IndieWire, and The Miami Herald, as well as the book “Variety’s The Movie That Changed My Life.” In 2017, Peter helped co-found the Animation Is Film Festival in Los Angeles, and he has been a member of juries at the SXSW, Reykjavik, Molodist, COLCOA, Annecy, and Cannes film festivals.”