Andrea Arnold--American Honey (2016)

So, about ten minutes into the film I turned to my viewing companion and said, “If this handheld camera continues much longer, I’m going to be sick.” That was annoying, but things settled down after that and I learned to love the movie. Or, if not love, then at least enjoy and appreciate. It’s a quite extraordinary accomplishment on many levels.

Some of my early discomfort with the movie stemmed from not being able to figure out what it was. This film falls into so many genres that even now I don’t know what to call it.  Female coming-of-age film? Road movie? Picaresque? All of the above, I guess.The movie seemed long-ish at 2 hours and 43 minutes, but then that’s pretty much a characteristic of the picaresque, so at least I didn’t have to wade through 700 pages with small print. And, in the end, it didn’t seem too long.  It seemed just right. The length allowed for unforced development.

Here are the qualities I most admired about this film:

The acting of Sasha Lane.  She is an incredible talent and I hope she gets a lot more chances to show what she’s capable of.

Shia LaBeouf…he was just playing himself, right?  Anyway, he was very good in a demanding role.

I loved that the film at many points does the unexpected, but it does it in a way that feels like the operation of chance, the randomness of life, proving that sometimes people do really stupid things and…nothing bad happens. It is especially notable here since when women do stupid things—like get very, very drunk with a bunch of men, total strangers, in a convertible—in films, they usually have to pay for them in some way, often with violence, sex or a combination of the two. It happens at several points—high anxiety alert!--that Star does these dumb or dangerous things and I really enjoyed the way the story backed away from the conventions. Of course, she does have plenty of unpleasant experiences, so it’s not like a total fiction.

Anyone who has ever driven cross-country taking old state highways and avoiding interstates will recognize that this really is America that the kids see out of the windows of the van. You can never tell what state they’re in because everything looks alike…the crummy shopping centers, the unsavory looking motels, the Walmarts and the Targets.  The homogeneity is stunning and true.Of course, there’s a lot to be depressed about in the film, too. 

Most or all of the kids seem to be runaways or kids who simply walked away and were never missed.  We are given a brief view of Star’s home-life and her parents and it is all too clear, though left unstated, what she’s leaving behind.  Every one of the young people is individualized to a remarkable degree and you get the sense that behind each one there is a similar history. They are shown as both singular and having a shared kind of story, one that doesn’t reflect well on contemporary America. They are also raucous, badly behaved, kind, funny and horrible to each other. They are no better and no worse than most. They are not (certainly not yet) rags-to-riches stories or young heroes. Maybe that’s where they are headed. But when we meet them they are not yet meth or heroin addicts and they are still moving on in life and having a shared adventure.

Here's the part of the film that didn’t ring true to me:  the scenes in Mission Hills. The scenes inside of the homes there did seem realistic. That combination of fear-of-offending and suspicion with which most of the women at home met Star and Jake was right on target and strongly rendered by all of the actors involved.  The truth is, though, that had Star and Jake gone into even one of those houses or rolled around on even one of those lovely lawns, they would have been surrounded by cops in the first five minutes or shot by a homeowner.That’s reality.

Excellent movie.  Support this work.