American Honey (2016)

163 minutes can be a turn off for a lot of viewers. Even in an age where we binge watch television programs for days on end, a movie that lasts longer than 2 hours is a test of endurance for most. Perhaps it is because we see television "episodes" as more manageable units of time. We finish one and can then choose to move into another. With movies we often feel we have to commit to the whole thing at once. Even though so many of us don't go to theatres to see films (like I do) where you actually do have to commit to sitting through the entire thing. Watching at home we can pause for a break, save the rest for another day. In this day, watching a movie can take place at whatever pace we want. Yet we still have trouble sitting down to watch something more than a couple of hours.

It's too bad cause sometimes it's worth it.

This is one of those times. 

This is the story of a young woman with little to loose, a woman who we might say in our current parlance is part of the "underclass," who upends her life to run away with a traveling band of similarly situated folks who also have received the fuzzier end of America's lollipop. She leaves her small southern America town and hits the highway with a shady but joyful group of misfits who find some tepid survival together. It's La Boheme in red states, seeking to take what they can from those with more to eke out an existence that is better than what they were getting.

Brit filmmaker Andrea Arnold captures what is both a critique of the underbelly of the American Dream and a satisfyingly tragic portrait of a female survivor by sticking to a clear story. She uses the tropes of indie films, hand held cameras, realish desperation (are they really having sex?), extended scenes of everyday mundanity, to create a generally enjoyable road trip adventure. And it mostly works. Yes it is long and yes there are moments where it drags, but I appreciate it when a film maker takes the time to tell her story and this story is well told.

I called it tragic but the ending is actually fairly liberating. The tragedy comes in knowing our heroine isn't going to save herself beyond the life that she is prescribed. But she still takes control of it for herself and makes it what she needs it to be.  There is victory in that.

And it's worth seeing through. Despite what you may hate about Shia LaBeouf, he reminds us here why we all thought he had so much potential when he first broke out. And while I think new find Sasha Lane is a bit overhyped, she manages well throughout. American Honey is a melancholy little adventure worth tagging along for.


American Honey
Starring: Sasha Lane, Shia LaBeouf, Riley Keough
Director: Andrea Arnold
Writer: Andrea Arnold