Written and directed by British filmmaker Andrea Arnold (the
Oscar-nominated “Fish Tank,” and “Wuthering Heights”), the beguiling “American
Honey” is a rambling, intoxicating road movie about youth, freedom, poverty,
and the American Dream. The film (Arnold’s first filmed in the US), which took
the Jury Prize at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, revolves around Star
(newcomer Sasha Lane), a teenager living in Oklahoma.
We first
meet Star as she’s dumpster-diving for food to feed herself and her younger
brother and sister. Shortly after, she observes a van loaded up with a rowdy
band of young people who look like they’re having the time of their lives.
Dancing, laughing, and generally having a grand old time, their lives seem as
far from her reality as it can get. She catches the eye of one of them, Jake (a
terrific Shia LaBeouf), and he eventually approaches her.
In short
order, the flirtatious Jake entices Star to join the world of “mag crews,” ragtag groups of young runaways and outcasts living on the
margins of society who travel across the country selling magazine subscriptions
door-to-door. The crew’s top salesman, Jake is also charged with recruiting new
members — he’s like Tom Sawyer with a rat tail and eyebrow piercing. Eager for
a way out of her situation, it doesn’t take much convincing for Star to hop
aboard. Arnold sketchily fills in the details of Star’s home life in these early
scenes: a lecherous father figure, absent mother, squalid house, so we see
exactly what she desires to escape from.
Jake’s crew
is headed up Krystal (Riley Keough, “Mad Max: Fury Road”), a sort of Fagin-like
figure who’s in charge of motivation and discipline, collecting the earnings at
the end of each day and making sure every member is making enough money to pull
their weight. At Krystal’s request, Jake takes Star under his wing and shows
her the tricks of the trade. Fanning out through upscale neighborhoods, they
knock on doors, doing their best to appeal to the resident’s sense of guilt and
privilege that they’ll buy whatever they’re selling. The crew spends their days
selling, their nights partying, and then move onto the next town. While Star’s
journey toward self-actualization remains central to the film, the loose plot
unfolds as both a road trip and surprisingly poignant love story as Star and
Jake pursue a romance, despite Krystal’s strict rules against relationships
between crew members.
“American
Honey” was inspired by a 2007 New York Times article about the mag crew
subculture, as well as by Arnold’s own trip through the heartland, and there’s
a lovely naturalism to the story. It’s a snapshot of the country as a whole —
its beauty, its inequality, and its diversity. It dramatizes the lives of those
in the underclass of society without ever descending into poverty porn. Save
for one heavy-handed sequence — in which Star runs into a young girl in
desperate circumstances who eagerly demonstrates her musical ability by
reciting lyrics from “I Kill Children” by Dead Kennedys — for the most part the
film is told with a clear-eyed sense of compassion.
Arnold gets
some wonderful performances from her young ensemble, who aside from a few
recognizable faces (including Arielle Holmes of last year’s druggie drama, “Heaven
Can Wait”), are mostly non-actors. They feel authentic and completely
convincing in the way they quickly form a surrogate family for one another.
Sasha Lane
was a Texas college student who Arnold discovered lying on a Miami beach during Spring Break. She’d never acted before, but
she’s a natural, giving what’s bound to be the breakout performance of the
year. She has a fragileness as well as an inherent toughness that suits her
character perfectly. She’s matched by LaBeouf, who gives one of the best and
most charismatic performances I’ve seen from him.
The film
looks gorgeous, with deeply-saturated, hand-held photography from lenser Robbie
Ryan. But the Academy aspect ratio Ryan shoots in ensures that, despite the
beautiful vistas and vast landscapes of the American South, there’s still a
sense that the world remains somewhat closed off to these characters.
The length
is bound to scare some people off — clocking in at an intimidating 163 minutes,
the film is rather unwieldy, but I never noticed the time. It’s meandering in
the way road trips often tend to be, as time seems to ebb and flow, somehow
both dragging and passing by too quickly. Its effect is completely entrancing.
Sometimes we start to feel as stir-crazy as the characters after all that time
spent crammed into a van, but as it rolls along in a fog of weed and booze, set
to a blaring soundtrack of trap, hip-hop, and pop music, it captures their
sense of freedom, with nothing but the open road ahead.
Check back on Friday for
additional film coverage, including interviews with “American Honey” star Sasha
Lane, and Sky Elobar of “The Greasy Strangler.”
This article appears in Oct 19-25, 2016.
