Hillbilly

Ever wonder what happened to that weird, banjo-playing, inbred-looking kid from the 1972 movie Deliverance? His name is Billy Redden, and he is now in his 60s. Redden appears in this powerful, thought-provoking documentary, working at his job of pushing carts in the parking lot of a Kentucky-based Walmart. Speaking to the camera, he says he dreams of getting to Los Angeles one day to resume acting. This scene is one of many unexpected yet also illuminating moments in Hillbilly, which dramatically puts human faces on the people of Appalachia, who have long been stereotyped as backwoods yokels and political pawns. The film’s co-director, Ashley York (collaborating with Sally Rubin), returned to her Kentucky home in 2016 following the election of Donald Trump to the U.S. presidency. York wanted to see what made so many people in Appalachia, including her grandmother and other family members, vote for a candidate with so much ethical baggage and policy proposals (such as eradicating Obamacare) that could actually harm the region’s economically struggling families. Her dialogues with relatives are kind and loving (some of them, such as her father, are fervently anti-Trump). But the bulk of Hillbilly serves up a composite of pop culture renderings of coal-country people as being easily dismissed hicks. As Hillbilly reminds us, they were waiting for a leader who at least claimed to remember and care about them. Recommended. Aud: C, P. (T. Keogh)