Hillbilly Elegy

By invitation only.

Join us as we get together at the J House patio to watch Hillbilly Elegy starring Amy Adams and Glenn Close.

The movie will be followed by a discussion with Brent Orrell, resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute where he works on job training, workforce development, and criminal justice reform. Specifically, his research focuses on expanding opportunity for all Americans through improved work readiness and job training and improving the performance of the criminal justice system through rehabilitation and prisoner reentry programs.

Mr. Orrell recently wrote “The Common Ground of Human Dignity” on Law & Liberty on the themes touched on by Hillbilly Elegy. Orrell writes of Hillbilly Elegy, “I have no opinion on whether Hillbilly Elegy is one of the best films ever produced or, less likely, one of the worst. What I do know about the film is that its themes appeal deeply to us because they touch upon an unspoken agreement that has sustained human communities for, if we are to believe our religious traditions and scientific records, as long as they have existed. Our prejudices may periodically obscure or override this understanding, but the sources and demands of human dignity always eventually reassert themselves. We would do well to heed hear and heed them.”