For a film made out of a bestselling book by a well-known liberal filmmaker (Ron Howard) and featuring Glenn Close, Amy Adams and Gabriel Besso, the movie seems surprisingly controversial. And why? Because, as I mentioned above, it’s devastating for the left’s political narrative.

As Princeton professor Robert P. George noted, responding to one negative review, “Do you think [those] who don’t want you to watch ‘Hillbilly Elegy’ might have . . . I dunno . . . an agenda? . . . The campaign against the film — made by the standard issue liberal filmmaker Ron Howard, by the way — is purely political.”

To be fair, everything coming from the left is political. But the reaction to this Netflix film tells us something about the way the left feels right now.