Amy Adams and Glenn Close Are Unrecognizable in New Trailer for Netflix’s ‘Hillbilly Elegy’

A brand new trailer has been released for Netflix‘s Hillbilly Elegy, and actresses Amy Adams and Glenn Close are nearly unrecognizable in it. The film is a family drama with Close and Adams playing a contentious mother and daughter pair, respectfully. Both women underwent heavy makeup to portray versions of the Appalachian family of author J. D. Vance, who wrote the memoir that the film is based on.

In the first trailer, we see Vance, played by Gabriel Basso, struggling to reconcile his family with where he is in life and where he’s headed. His mother (Adams) is emotionally unstable and has suffered from drug addiction, while his grandparents are both recovering alcoholics, who eventually assume guardianship over him. The family’s struggles start to boil over, and we’re left wondering how, or if, they will mend the wounds that created the divide between them. The book — which is titled Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis — is, in many ways, a commentary on personal responsibility as it pertains to certain social and economic circumstances, which the film may touch on as well.

Hillbilly Elegy is directed by Ron Howard (Apollo 13, A Beautiful Mind), from a screenplay by Vanessa Taylor (The Shape of Water, Game of Thrones). Howard also serves as an executive producer alongside his longtime filmmaking partner Brian Grazer. IN addition to Adams, Close, and Basso, the film also co-stars Haley Bennett, Freida Pinto, Bo Hopkins, and Owen Asztalos. Hillbilly Elegy is currently scheduled to be released on Nov. 24. It will play in select theaters while also being available to stream on Netflix.

Howard is very busy man, as he has also recently finished a new documentary film, titled Rebuilding Paradise. That film — which was a partnership for Howard and Grazer’s Imagine Entertainment and National Geographic Documentary Films — follows the rebuilding of Paradise, California, following the devastating 2018 California wildfires. In an interview with The Guardian, Howard spoke about his vision for the project, saying, “We need to take an organic approach. Once you say: ‘It’s not just this or that,’ it gets politicised: ‘Do you believe in climate change? Or do you not?’ But it’s about all of it: it’s about clearing away the brush and it’s about climate change.”