Film Review of 'American Honey'

In light of the '2026 is 2016' trend on the internet these days, and my never-ending quest to see all of the movies about road trips in the world, I'm going to talk about the film American Honey for Hysteria today. I'm also going to add a content warning here for sexual assault and grooming, so if you'd rather not read about those topics, I suggest checking out one of my other film reviews, like this one about the movie Lisa Frankenstein or this one about What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? If you decide to continue reading, I hope you enjoy today's post and make sure to watch this one for free on Tubi (some spoilers ahead)!

[taken from imdb]

American Honey is an indie drama film released in 2016, directed and written by Andrea Arnold. It does not strike me as the type of entertainment you would recommend to somebody in a blog post; this is the type of movie you discover, alone, in a late-night stupor that wholeheartedly disturbs you to the point where it's time to turn Tubi off and pretend this was just a bad, filthy dream.

At its worst parts, this movie is sick, horrifying, and disturbing. It is the prying eye watching over your most humiliating, pathetic tries at normalcy, and instead opts for any serenity that can be found elsewhere. American Honey represses itself, barely digesting the degeneracy it presents in the previous scene. Rather than dwell on the image of Star's sexually abusive father for too long, the camera lingers on burning cigarettes, turning a blind eye, and assuming the role of a fly on the wall. This role is continuous, as it seems that we are dropped into one town, then off to another as fast as we get there. In short, this is some real redneck shit. Also, can we please stop letting white people say racial slurs in movies for no reason??

It's hard for me to write a concise, comprehensive review of this movie because it goes on for a dreadfully long time (nearly three hours), yet in that time, there are great moments when their naive, rebellious, purely "American" spirit is palpable. In this movie's best parts, its subjects are indulging in vice after vice, flashing each other in a motel parking lot, wrestling and drinking while line dancing in the rural Midwest. I think the reason these gratifying scenes seem so infectious is that the people in them are not polished; the things they do are not advisable. It's easy to say the sincerity of this movie is what makes it so touching, but it feels like a more complex issue than that. We don't just see the pretty parts of being genuine; we see the nasty ones, too. We see the incestuous parts, the advantageous parts. We see the raw, spoiled chicken and alcoholic worm. Ultimately, this film begs the question: what makes somebody young? How long can somebody be young and reckless before it takes on the role of plain misery? How long will Krystal and her entourage of drug-seeking adolescents trying to get by persevere on the road for until they decide they don't want to wind up as roadkill? Does JJ ever recover from being called gay-gay because it was such a sick burn? We may never know the answers to these questions despite the film's nearly THREE-HOUR runtime, which is mainly occupied by them going door to door selling shitty $30 magazines.

[taken from slate magazine]

American Honey is a double-edged sword that begs for things to get better before taking a sharp, voluntary turn back into white trash. On a more complex level, our main girl, Star, is a troubled youth who has been painstakingly failed by her parents, family, friends, school system, society, and every person she meets along the way who deems her anything less than a naive eighteen-year-old girl. Star is living proof that there's nothing more American than being failed by your own country.

If you enjoyed watching this movie, please seek professional help and Harmony Korine. I'd also like to request an edit of this movie that removes the plentiful scenes of a 30-year-old Shia LaBeouf with a rat tail and an 18-year-old girl going at it in the Oklahoma summer heat, with no protection, no birth control, no nothing. It genuinely disturbs the mind and has dealt me -10,000 psychic damage. More riot grrrl content out next week, have as good a Tuesday as you can after this.

There are no monsters under your bed, only Shia LaBeouf with a rat tail.

Love,

Mila ♡