Five years after bringing J.D. Vance‘s memoir to Netflix, Ron Howard doesn’t appear to waste much time thinking about the Trump VP.
The 2x Oscar-winning director behind 2020’s Hillbilly Elegy explained that the author and former Ohio senator’s political pivot “remains a bit of a surprise to me” after they spent time together promoting the movie when it was released.
“I don’t think about it,” Howard told Vulture of the film’s complicated legacy. “I know it’s a mixed bag and probably quite culturally divided. I also know that reviews were bad and the audience-reaction rating was pretty good.”
When asked if he’s able to reconcile the Vance he knew with the one he sees serving under President Donald Trump, Howard said, “Well, it’s happened, so I know what I’ve observed. It remains a bit of a surprise to me. I would not have seen it coming, and I wouldn’t have expected his rhetoric to be as divisive as it sometimes is. By the way, I’m not following him or listening to every word.”
In Hillbilly Elegy, a Yale Law student (Gabriel Basso) returns to his Appalachian hometown, where he reflects on three generations of family history. The film also stars Amy Adams and Glenn Close, earning the latter Oscar and Golden Globe nominations for Best Supporting Actress.
After Trump named Vance as his VP pick, Hillbilly Elegy viewership grew 1,180% from 1.5M to 19.2M minutes watched in 24 hours.
When it was published in 2016, Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis was held up by conservatives and liberals as shedding light on why such a large segment of the population felt alienated from society as Vance’s family history was one of struggle in a legacy of abuse, alcoholism and poverty, depicted the decline of the white working class.
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