American Honey Review | VIFF 2016

<p>Millennials have been at the short end of the theoretical stick for a long time&period; Between Baby Boomers&comma; Generation X&comma; and everything in between&comma; blame needs to be placed for the next generation to blame their issues on&period; Andrea Arnold isn&&num;8217&semi;t looking to place blame on any specific group of people&period; Arnold takes disenfranchised youth and builds a film around their misfortunes and misgivings&period; As her fourth film&comma; <em>American Honey <&sol;em>feels a little familiar&comma; but it doesn&&num;8217&semi;t lose the dream-like qualities or open feeling of the world and the characters that inhabit it&period; <em>American Honey <&sol;em>doesn&&num;8217&semi;t just feel like a retread&comma; but it serves itself as a continuation of the themes Arnold has gravitated towards&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Trapped in Texas with the responsibility of taking care of two children&comma; Star &lpar;Sasha Lane&rpar; is tired of her life&period; Instead of their parents paying for food&comma; Star dives into grocery store dumpsters for semi-fresh food&period; Presented with the opportunity of selling magazines door-to-door by Jake &lpar;Shia Labeouf&rpar;&comma; Star reluctantly takes him up on the offer and subsequently ditches the children with their parents&period; Led by the prickly Krystal &lpar;Riley Keough&rpar;&comma; Jake and the rest of the kids drive along the mid-west in search of money and the rest of their lives&period; The intentions of these people are never clear cut and shouldn&&num;8217&semi;t be presented as such&period; Thankfully&comma; through the actions of the motley crew of magazine sellers&comma; we&&num;8217&semi;re able to learn enough to know something about them&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<figure id&equals;"attachment&lowbar;114784" aria-describedby&equals;"caption-attachment-114784" style&equals;"width&colon; 926px" class&equals;"wp-caption aligncenter"><img class&equals;"wp-image-114784 size-full" src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2016&sol;10&sol;29221912&sol;MV5BYTJiYzA1ODUtMDJjZi00N2YwLTgxYmQtMGUwYjc3YjhjNzAzXkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyNTU2NDMyOTM&percnt;40&period;&lowbar;V1&lowbar;&period;jpg" alt&equals;"&lpar;American Honey&comma; A24&comma; Elevation Pictures&rpar;" width&equals;"926" height&equals;"584" &sol;><figcaption id&equals;"caption-attachment-114784" class&equals;"wp-caption-text">&lpar;<em>American Honey<&sol;em>&comma; A24&comma; Elevation Pictures&rpar;<&sol;figcaption><&sol;figure>&NewLine;<p>Over the next 2 hours and 43 minutes &lpar;yes&comma; it&&num;8217&semi;s really that long&rpar; we witness Star and her friends go door-to-door while exploring their lives&comma; but mostly following Star&period; <em>American Honey <&sol;em>is a film that is difficult to spoil as there is very little plot within the movie&period; By the time Star leaves with the gang&comma; Arnold goes through a series of vignettes and allows us to empathize or distance ourselves from these characters&comma; depending on their actions&period; And that&&num;8217&semi;s what this movie ultimately comes down to&period; Can we connect to these characters despite the fact they don&&num;8217&semi;t have a specific goal in sight&quest; <em>American Honey <&sol;em>ends up being an entertaining interpretation game&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>There&&num;8217&semi;s definitely an aimless feel throughout the movie&comma; but the vignettes transform our ideas with these people without creating a subplot that takes over portions of the film&period; Outside of Sasha Lane&&num;8217&semi;s extraordinary debut performance&comma; we get atypically great turns from Shia Labeouf who still proves he&&num;8217&semi;s more than his antics despite sporting a rat tail&comma; and <em>The Girlfriend Experience<&sol;em>&&num;8216&semi;s Riley Keough as their ruthless leader&period; Arnold has a way of finding the best people for the roles and making it feel frighteningly natural&period; The only problem with this is that this is becoming Arnold&&num;8217&semi;s shtick&period; With her sophomore masterpiece&comma; <em>Fish Tank&comma; <&sol;em>Arnold would pick people out of the street to be her actors including her lead in the film&comma; Katie Jarvis&period; The use of amateur actors still works&comma; but barely makes the movie feel all that different from the prior film&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<figure id&equals;"attachment&lowbar;114785" aria-describedby&equals;"caption-attachment-114785" style&equals;"width&colon; 1000px" class&equals;"wp-caption aligncenter"><img class&equals;"wp-image-114785 size-large" src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2016&sol;10&sol;29222006&sol;MV5BMDIyNGU3ZTAtNDk3NC00ODY4LTlkYWQtYTIwYmZkZjAxNWU1XkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyNTU2NDMyOTM&percnt;40&period;&lowbar;V1&lowbar;&period;jpg" alt&equals;"&lpar;American Honey&comma; A24&comma; Elevation Pictures&rpar;" width&equals;"1000" height&equals;"667" &sol;><figcaption id&equals;"caption-attachment-114785" class&equals;"wp-caption-text">&lpar;<em>American Honey<&sol;em>&comma; A24&comma; Elevation Pictures&rpar;<&sol;figcaption><&sol;figure>&NewLine;<p>By the time the credits roll&comma; we reflect on the great soundtrack&comma; the beautiful images captured in the academy ratio of 1&colon;33&colon;1&comma; and ponder on what it all means&period; That alone makes this journey worth it&comma; even if we&&num;8217&semi;ve gone on something similar before&period; <em>American Honey <&sol;em>never loses its own sense of reality along the massive runtime and makes it feel like if we&&num;8217&semi;re not living in the real world&comma; we&&num;8217&semi;re living in one that&&num;8217&semi;s real for our characters&period; Andrea Arnold still proves herself to be one of the most talented and tremendous filmmakers working today&period; Let&&num;8217&semi;s just not wait another five years this time&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;