Newcomer Sasha Lane is Star, an eighteen-year old wide-eyed girl looking for adventure, so she joins a group of teenagers - all whom feel like the cast of a long-lost sequel to Larry Clarke's Kids (1995) - in order to sell door-to-door magazine subscriptions in Kansas. She soon forms a relationship with Jake (Shia LaBeouf), the group's shady, conniving salesman who teaches her the ropes of their trade. The movie's free flowing narrative and hand-held camera work reminded me of Terrence Malick and Jean Luc-Godard's films, but alas, American Honey, at two hours and forty-three minutes, is at least an hour too long. There are way too many shots from inside the back of the van, the characters dance and jumps aimlessly a few too many times, and do we really need to see the main two protagonists have long, passionate sex not once, but twice?? (We kind of got the idea the first time) Director Andrea Arnold has now made one too many movies about female teenage angst (2009's Fish Tank is a much more compact and superior film), and if I was her, I'd quit while I was ahead. American Honey is what one gets when a filmmaker falls in love with her footage to such an extent that she's not willing to sacrifice a single shot for the sake of cohesion. It's unfortunate that it's the audience who gets the short stick in such a scenario.
C
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