Hillbilly Elegy is a 2020 American drama film directed by Ron Howard, from a screenplay by Vanessa Taylor, based on the 2016 memoir of the same name by J. D. Vance, played as an adult by Gabriel Basso and as a youngster by Owen Asztalos. The film also stars Amy Adams and Glenn Close with Haley Bennett, Freida Pinto and Bo Hopkins (in his final role) in supporting roles. The story begins when a Yale law student must return to his family in Ohio after a family emergency, and follows his memories growing up there and in Kentucky. The title, Hillbilly Elegy, suggests a serious and somewhat reverent treatment of an otherwise looked-down-upon population.