The other side of the tracks: White rural poverty in Rich Hil

Not to be confused with the Red Sox pitcher of the same name, the documentary Rich Hill (Andrew Droz Palermo and Tracy Droz Tragos) is a close study of three families literally on the other side of the tracks in the eponymous middle-class Missouri town. We get a few glimpses of high-school life as experienced by most kids in Rich Hill - football games, cheerleaders, clean hallways, bustling activity, a typical American small-town or suburban high school, and then we focus on 3 kids and their lives, each different, each sorrowful and terrifying in their poverty. Two of the kids seem to have virtually no chance for success: a very angry and troubled young man who's far beyond the control of his beleaguered mother and a young man who seems of limited intelligence who's a victim of sexual abuse and is being raised by his grandmother while mother is in prison. Sadly, these kinds of stories are present in almost every community, and though usually associated w/ extreme poverty, as in this film, that's not always so. The 3rd and most troubling (and also most appealing of the 3 kids) is a teenage boy whose family has lived in what seems like a dozen communities - his father tries unsuccessfully to make a living doing odd jobs and, pathetically, performing as a Hank Williams tribute act - he's musical, and has no capacity to earn a living or raise a family. The mother as well is extremely incapacitated - Rx probably, but that's never made clear - and yet throughout it all this young man has great spirit and drive and is very loving toward his sister and his parents, who have utterly failed him. So what chance does this kid have, either? Other than the correctional system, social services seem to have done nothing for these families, and there's no hand of charity from churches or anywhere else. It's a very powerful and honest look at mostly forgotten white semi-rural poverty - and the only drawback to the film, unfortunately, is that it successful portrays the hopeless situations of these characters and there for has no narrative arc. At the end, we're almost exactly where we started, unfortunately. I would also note that I hate the use of musical scores in movies of this sort and think that documentary footage should stand on its own without orchestrated crescendos.