Melissa Glindmeyer

As one who comes from “Hillbilly Royalty” and later studied Ruby Payne’s Framework for Understanding Generational Poverty in order to teach others, this movie hit close to home. My son gave me Vance’s book when it first came out, knowing well how closely the story line read to my own. Roger Ebert said of this movie, “ —when it's "your people" who are being depicted, ... it turns the experience into something intimate, shared and cathartic. If it were possible to get those from the mainstream culture who want to learn about Appalachian poverty to do a guided reading of the book first, then watch the movie, the ratings would be much different. However, the people of this culture spend much less time clamoring to be understood. Thank you, JD for taking the time to try and Ron Howard for “getting us” so well.