HILLBILLY ELEGY.

• Author: Slade, Stephanie
• Position: MOVIE

It has been much remarked that Hollywood, whose denizens fall generally to the left of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, often produces movies with conservative themes. That is certainly true of Ron Howard's adaptation of J.D. Vance's memoir Hillbilly Elegy, the moral of which is that hard work and self-discipline can overcome the snares of poverty.

In depicting Vance's true-life journey from the Appalachian hill country to Yale Law School, the film studiously avoids explicit discussion of what caused his family's plight or what his escape implies. Unlike the book, it is not a political story. Yet it has been met with all-but-universally negative...