As someone who loved the book, the movie was underneath it rating wise but the movie still captures the story and the lessons well. Starting off with the negatives, it focuses too much on the "current day" of the movie setting. Vance in his book talked very briefly about his visit home to Ohio to take care of his mother. The movie needed to focus more on his time in the Marines, how before moving in with Mamaw Lindsey pretty much raised him, JD reuniting with his biological father after he thought he abandoned him, and how Papaw was the only real father figure he had. Including more flashbacks that included these key moments in JD's life would have made the movie much better. Now why the critics didn't get it. The movie might have been too smart with the implications it gave the audience. JD is a conservative that provides a different perspective on why the ills of a culture exist. For social constructionists, the movie doesn't make any sense because it doesn't line up with their worldview. JD believes that people get stuck in a cycle of poverty because the culture they grow up in is inherently negative. If JDs mother grew up in a better house and neighborhood and given the proper guidance, she would have been incredibly successful. The book focuses on this much more where the movie hints at it. At what point can you blame her for being a terrible mother? The only way you can get better, to JD, is if you take responsibility for yourself and slowly get better. JD is an exception. The only reason he didn't end up like his mother was because he got lucky in his youth. Of course he worked hard to improve himself, but he happened to have a good enough social network (early on being Lindsey and Mamaw and later Usha) to nudge him in the right direction. The story is not about JD. It's about his mother, who is in the majority, and about how taking personal responsibility is the only way out. The scene that showed when his grandparents moved to Middletown vs it current day is shown when the factories shut down and the jobs left. This is also the area of the country that helped Donald Trump win in 2016. These people are desperate to escape and JD is writing them a letter on how. The government won't save you so the only way is to do it yourself. The movie and book will resonate more with people who understand that struggle and I feel like the critics who don't understand how Trump won will not understand the point of this story either.
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