American Honey

Cert: 16. In selected cinemas.

Picture this: You’re stuck in the back of a minibus with inebriated teenagers. They’re exposing bits of themselves, blaring hip-hop songs and forcing you to holler along with the lyrics. You are all on a roadtrip in the US that will take a little under three hours. More hip-hop, more hollering etc etc.

And to make matters worse, Shia LaBeouf is sitting beside you.

If none of this is your idea of fun, then perhaps give Andrea Arnold’s indie drama American Honey a miss. Between the motel stops and fraternal sing-alongs, Arnold’s film goes to great pains to show you shaky, arty shots of insects by lamplight or its lead (newcomer Sasha Lane) gazing forlornly out windows.

If an hour of this superfluous indulgence was shaved from the screenplay and more focus was applied, American Honey could have struck gold as a saga from the squalid outflow of the American dream. Lane plays Star, who escapes her broken home when she happens upon Jake (LaBeouf ) and his dissolute rabble of door-to-door magazine subscription peddlers. She hops aboard and passes the initiation with the iron-fisted group leader, Krystal, played by Riley Keough. Drugs are consumed, cheap booze is swigged and Jake and Star’s mutual attraction is consummated. This puts Krystal’s nose out of joint as the wildness of the tour escalates.

Dublin cinematography whizz Robbie Ryan (who worked with Arnold on her Wuthering Heights shoot) paints everything in sunset-lit hues befitting the teen-dream narrative. Lane is a real find and Keough (Elvis’s granddaughter, in case you didn’t know) just about convinces as a white-trash wagon. There are some interesting conversations broached but they are then erased by more tedium and musical numbers. As for the heinous LaBeouf, he is still as punchable on-screen as he is off.