Rich Hill

A melancholy slice-of-life portrait of Americans struggling to subsist in the crippled 21st-century U.S., the ironically named Rich Hill focuses on a wrong-side-of-the-tracks white community in Missouri. The lyrical cinema vérité narrative directed by cousins Tracy Droz Tragos and Andrew Droz Palermo follows three adolescent boys in the bottoming-out lower classes. Andrew seems to be hardworking and responsible, but he and his chronically-ill mother have been uprooted time and again as his impractical father (a Hank Williams tribute act, among other dubious skills) moves from place to place in search of income. One of many children born to a teenage mother, Appachey is an ADHD/OCD-afflicted classroom troublemaker and possible bully, who is growing increasingly ungovernable. Harley's mother is in prison, allegedly for trying to kill Harley's stepfather for abusing the boy—who is now a chain-smoking misfit and habitual truant from junior high school. Recurring, bittersweet themes touch on family loyalty, lack of opportunities, and the American Dream being seemingly beyond reach in a broken-hearted heartland. Recommended. Aud: C, P. (C. Cassady)