American Honey
American Honey
In one of t he countless freewheeling moments in American Honey, protagonist Star (Sasha Lane) stands up through the sunroof of a car driven by her pseudo-boyfriend Jake ( Shia LaBeouf ) and shouts: “I feel like I’m f—ing America!”
Your reaction to this line of dialogue will indicate how much you can tolerate the 163- minute film, which won British director Andrea Arnold her third Jury Prize at Cannes. Do you enjoy bloated, repetitive and heavy- handed movies? If so, gorge yourself on American Honey, a coming- of- age film so drenched with simple metaphors about Americana that you expect it to leave a sticky residue.
With its faux- documentary camera work and closeups of details and faces, American Honey allocates abundant screen time to the most mundane aspects of rural landscapes: bugs, animals, bloodied grass, flecks of dust, beams of sunlight through a car window. These are great details, but what do they mean, other than showing us an unimaginative travelogue of the southern United States? The repetition is rote instead of poetic, forced instead of natural.
American Honey is about latchkey kids, decked out in tattoos and piercings, full of stories about turkey hunting and getting wasted. They love shout-rapping to a never- ending stream of hiphop while commuting from one town to another in a big van under the charge of suntanned queen bee Krystal (Riley Keough).
Firecrackers, weed, alcohol and mischief offer respite from their daily job of doorto-door magazine selling. In turn they get food, a roof over their heads (in motel rooms) and a protection they’d never get on the streets. No one obeys Krystal’s command more loyally than her boytoy/manservant Jake.
Who does Jake really love? Much of the narrative tension comes from the cold dynamic between Krystal and Star, the latter naively assuming Jake has feelings only for her ( during their one-on-one sales training, he certainly gives that impression). In actuality, Krystal relies on Jake’s easygoing charm to not only sell magazines but to attract impressionable vagabonds like Star to join her crew.
Star is our gateway into understanding this freespirited American teen culture — the other kids are ciphers who entertain us with shenanigans like peeing in the Grand Canyon, but are otherwise unknowable. It’s obvious that the cyclical repetition of acts like Star’s sentimental rescue attempts of bugs and animals are supposed to underscore the fleeting novelty of a new adventure and its subsequent crushing disillusionment. But every element of American Honey is so on the nose that watching is torturous. Every moment i s an opportunity to show off the American flag, or focus on an easy- to- ridicule aspect of southern culture like square dancing, or make a popculture reference, like one of the kids’ creepy obsession with Darth Vader.
The use of popular music to make a point is especially flagrant in American Honey. When a potential customer asks Star about her dreams as Bruce Springsteen’s “Dream Baby Dream” plays on the radio. Elsewhere the cosy lyrics of Mazzy Star’s “Fade Into You” underline Star’s intimacy with Jake. But copious usage of pop music points to lazy filmmaking, as if Arnold can’t trust her visuals or her actors (many of them non-professionals) to tell the story.
The literal nature of lyrics and the well- known melodies of pop songs ensure every single audience member knows exactly what is going on at every moment. This isn’t a technique, it’s a crutch. It may appeal to the lowest common denominator of filmgoers excited to hear a compilation of good music and who can rapturously nod their heads along to Rihanna when Star fools herself into thinking she’s “found love in a hopeless place.”
But it remains to be seen if American Honey will be remotely watchable in 10 years, or suffice as nothing more than a historic document of what a British tourist found quaint about American culture in 2016. Ω½
POPULAR MUSIC TO MAKE A POINT IS ESPECIALLY FLAGRANT.