#swampwitchwigs

[wigwurq]

WIG REVIEW: HILLBILLY ELEGY

I ACTUALLY WATCHED THIS MOVIE Y’ALL. I promised I would watch some Oscar movies instead of prestige TV shows with bad red wigs so I sorta did that: I watched Oscar bait. Because lordt knows this movie is not winning any Oscars (and if it does, it is truly the asterisk Oscars). THIS YEAR YOU GUYS. There is so much to discuss in this movie. Yes, the wigs too. Also there are lots of spoilers but here’s the thing: THIS MOVIE IS AWFUL AND YOU SHOULD ABSOLUTELY NOT WATCH IT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES AND INSTEAD JUST READ THIS REVIEW. I WATCHED THIS HORROR SO YOU DON’T HAVE TO! YOU ARE WELCOME! 

We begin in Kentucky 1997. AND EVERYTHING IS JUST SO KENTUCKY 1997. All landscapes/cars/people are beige and broken and depressed. We meet JD who is good at biking and saving turtles and spending the summer with his messed up family. HE IS ALSO A TERRIBLE ACTOR AS IS THE OLDER VERSION OF HIM. Important note: I did not read this book and the real JD is an awful Libertarian asshole and nothing about his story, his book, or this movie should be supported. I AM HERE FOR THE WIGS, Y’ALL. MOVING ON!

As promised, Glenn Close as JD’s grandma MAMAW (YES THAT IS HER CHARACTER NAME) looks exactly like Gene Shalit. A friend of mine made this comparison and I cannot unsee it. Amy Adams, straight off (ok maybe several years off?) deglamming for Sharp Objects is just completely frizzed (and kinda strung) out. These wigs are truly abominable as is this film. Anyway, they leave Kentucky and go back to Ohio where they live and where it is somehow more depressing than Kentucky. 

But ok the wig, y’all. Amy Adams hair is is as shitty and unmanageable as her character which might have been a choice? Still, this wig is a tangled, dried out nightmare that cannot be defended (nor can this character’s child abuse and drug problems). Within moments of returning to Ohio, Amy Adams scolds her child for allowing a gifted dog to pee on her wall to wall carpeting and then the cops have to break up a car slap fight (of her slapping her child!) that spills out into a neighbor’s house. SHE MIGHT BE THE WORST MOM IN HISTORY BUT SHE SHOULD DEFINITELY BE ARRESTED FOR WIG CRIMES.

ONTO GLENN CLOSE - SHE LOOKS LIKE GENE SHALIT. THE END. Whoever approved this wig is a huge fan of American film critic Gene Shalit sans mustache. It is the only possible explanation. AND THIS PATCHY MAKEUP. I CANNOT YOU GUYS. I realize that everyone was aiming for deglam Oscars but they went too far. 

ANYWAY. This film flashes between 1997 and 2011, where older JD (again also a terrible actor) is somehow in law school at Yale (OK?) and dating Freida Pinto who this film claims is normal law school age (FUN FACT: she’s 37). Older JD kind of has his life together other than the fact that all the snobs of law school cannot deal with this hillbilly kid who doesn’t know what a salad fork is. And then JD’s sister (played by Haley Bennett aka offbrand Jennifer Lawrence who I actually prefer more) calls and says that MOM IS IN TROUBLE PLEASE RUIN ANY LAW PROSPECTS AND COME HOME EVEN THOUGH MOM IS ABSOLUTELY THE WORST. AND HE DOES YOU GUYS!

Amy Adams’ 2011 wig/makeup/everything is probably the visualization of 2020? I assume this wig was made from leftover parts from Glenn Close’s Gene Shalit wig grafted onto a Halloween fright wig. It could very easily work for a swamp witch costume if you didn’t care about the quality of your swamp witch wig. IT IS THE WORST AS IS SHE. So she was in trouble because she overdosed on heroin...of course she did. After driving all night to get to Ohio, JD gets a call for a second interview at an important law whatever and just HAS TO GET BACK TO NEW HAVEN in the next like 6 hours which still feel like 600. The whole time he’s dealing with Amy Adams and her fright wig, it is a race against time to see if he’ll make it back and secure his future. I guess this is the plot of the movie? I could honestly not tell you. Basically the whole film (if you can call it that?) is strung together vignettes of strung out Amy Adams and yelling Glenn Close that never really add up to anything? BUT THERE IS SO MUCH YELLING ALWAYS. It’s like the opposite of a slow burn - it’s just constant flames and not the cool gay kind.

In any case, we flash back to the ‘90s where Amy Adams’ wig is basically everything Tonya Harding ever hoped and dreamed for (other than that Olympic medal...also Amy Adams would have been a much better casting choice in I, TONYA which had vastly superior wigs BUT I DIGRESS). We see how this drug habit developed - Amy Adams was a nurse and hoarded pills! This leads to the most truly outrageous film sequence I have seen in a long time where high as hell Amy Adams roller skates through the halls of the hospital where she works in her damn nurses scrubs and obviously immediately gets fired. Also her dad dies! Also she tries to kill herself and ends up screaming bloody murder (also covered in blood) in the middle of street and then goes to rehab (rehab doesn’t work). And then gets married to some rando. And then she gets some new job and needs JD to lend her some pee so she can still be a nurse. This all happens in the course of like 10 minutes.  Like I said, this movie is constant insane vignettes - it’s like 100 plots at once and also no plot at all.

And then JD - definitely out of nowhere - develops a gang of terrible drug addicted teenage friends (sure!) who steal/crash cars and make everyone super pissed at JD. ALSO! For reasons unknown or ever explained, Glenn Close ends up in the hospital herself and then has the realization that only she can save JD from his effed up life AND TEARS ALL THE IVS OUT OF HER ARM AND STORMS OUT OF THE HOSPITAL WITH NO CONSEQUENCES OR EXPLANATIONS AS TO WHY SHE WAS THERE IN THE FIRST PLACE! YOU GUYS. 

Also! JD tries to steal a graphing calculator for school from Radio Shack (this is for sure the most 90s sentence I’ve written in a while!) AND GLENN CLOSE IS PISSED! She lays down the law and also buys the graphic calculator herself even though that means they have to live off meals on wheels. BUT! Then he gets the best grade of the entire class on his math quiz and I DEMAND TO KNOW HOW HE KNEW HE HAD THE BEST GRADE IN THE ENTIRE CLASS AS THIS IS NEVER EXPLAINED OR SHOWN AND I NEED ANSWERS! Regardless, the graphing calculator not only saved JD’s grade point average but maybe set him on the path to Yale??? The concept that consumerism is the only thing that will help you as a “hillbilly” is really troubling and bespeaks the issues with this work of non-fiction as a whole. Anyway this movie really want you to know that GRAPHING CALCULATORS SAVE LIVES!!!

There is also a wig battle royale between Amy Adams and Glenn Close wherein there are absolutely no winners (but we, the viewer, definitely loses most!) It is honestly unclear to me how this fight ends (or how any fights end in this movie) because every interaction turns immediately into a fight and when said fight reaches its zenith, the movie cuts away to another vignette! Regardless, the wigs are complete garbage AS IS THIS MOVIE.

Back in 2011, Amy Adams refuses to be admitted to a rehab facility and older JD drives her back to her druggie boyfriend’s house which looks like this and I was like...hold up where have I seen this house before?

The answer is: 2010′s THE FIGHTER ALSO STARRING AMY ADAMS DEGLAMMING HERSELF FOR AN OSCAR SHE DIDN’T WIN! Ok actually in comparison, these houses aren’t that similar other than they are depressing houses with multitier front porches BUT STILL. 

Anyway, JD leaves Amy Adams and her sad swamp witch wig at some random motel where nothing is resolved between them at all and then he drives all night back to New Haven whilst talking to Freida Pinto on the phone (SHE NEEDS TO SLEEP TOO, DUDE! HOW DO YOU THINK SHE IS PLAYING 14 YEARS HER JUNIOR! SLEEP!) And then...he does get to the interview and....the movie ends!! WHAT!TRULY AND FROM THE BOTTOM OF MY HEART: WHAT DID I JUST WATCH AND WAS IT A MOVIE? I STILL DON’T KNOW!

There is an epilogue of pictures of the real people and you guys: MAMAW LOOKED NOTHING LIKE GENE SHALIT. Also why do I even care about these real people???? Yes the real JD made something of himself....he wrote the book on which this movie is based and became a Libertarian asshole and worked with Peter Theil?!?! OK??? I guess the full story is in the epilogue? But this movie absolutely begins and ends nowhere and in between we are treated to a lot of nonsensical yelling and terrible, awful, no good wigs. I IMPLORE YOU: DO NOT WATCH THIS MOVIE!!!!!! MAYBE WATCH SOME YOUTUBE CLIPS OF GENE SHALIT INSTEAD! 

VERDICT: DOESN’T WURQ