American Honey (2016)

A teenage girl with nothing to lose joins a traveling magazine sales crew, and gets caught up in a whirlwind of hard partying, law bending and young love as she criss-crosses the Midwest with a band of misfits.

Director:

Andrea Arnold

Writer:

Andrea Arnold

Stars:

Sasha Lane, Shia LaBeouf, Riley Keough

Nominated for 1 BAFTA Film Award. Another 13 wins & 37 nominations.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Sasha Lane	...	Star
Shia LaBeouf	...	Jake
Riley Keough	...	Krystal
McCaul Lombardi	...	Corey
Arielle Holmes	...	Pagan
Crystal Ice	...	Katness (as Crystal B. Ice)
Veronica Ezell	...	QT (as Verronikah Ezell)
Chad Cox	...	Billy (as Chad McKenzie Cox)
Garry Howell	...	Austin
Kenneth Kory Tucker	...	Sean
Raymond Coalson	...	JJ
Isaiah Stone	...	Kalium
Dakota Powers	...	Runt
Shawna Rae Moseley	...	Shaunte
Christopher David Wright	...	Riley

Storyline

Star, a teenage girl with nothing to lose, joins a traveling magazine sales crew, and gets caught up in a whirlwind of hard partying, law bending and young love as she criss-crosses the Midwest with a band of misfits.

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Plot Keywords:

road movie | male full frontal nudity | male frontal nudity | triple f rated | public nudity | 

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Taglines:

Astonishing performances, remarkable use of music, and truly deft film-making!

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Genres:

Adventure | Drama | Romance

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Motion Picture Rating (MPAA)

Rated R for strong sexual content, graphic nudity, language throughout, drug/alcohol abuse-all involving teens

Details

Official Sites:

Official site

Country:

UK USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

14 October 2016 (UK)

Also Known As:

Amerikos mylimoji

Filming Locations:

Muskogee, Oklahoma, USA

Box Office

Opening Weekend USA:

$71,203, 2 October 2016, Limited Release

Gross USA:

$662,786, 2 December 2016

Cumulative Worldwide Gross:

$1,751,330, 4 December 2016

Company Credits

Production Co:

Maven Pictures,Film4,KC Film Office

Technical Specs

Runtime:

163 min

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

Was shot almost exclusively handheld.

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Goofs

After Jake steals the white Cadillac and hits the road, the right side mirror housing is blue. In a later shot it's white again - the same color as the rest of the car.

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Quotes

Pagan: You know what Darth Vader looks like beneath that mask? He's a skeleton. Just like the rest of us.

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Crazy Credits

The closing credits, after the lead actor names, consist of a list of names, alphabetized by first name, with no indication of whether they are crew or cast -- no job titles or character names. And there are no opening credits.

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Connections

References Almost Famous (2000)

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Soundtracks

God's Whisper
Written by Raury (as Raury Tullis)
Published by Universal/MCA Music Ltd.
Performed by Raury
Courtesy of Sony Music Entertainment Inc

User Reviews

Lost and found on the road to nowhere.

A young girl, named Star, with no economic abilities, bears the heavy responsibility of raising her two younger siblings.

Hungry after living the life of a teenager she gets attracted to a group of young people at a supermarket with high spirit and a bad attitude. She leaves her siblings behind and joins the group who lives from day to day selling magazines to whomever they meet. The common denominator is the selling of magazines. How to do it? How to manipulate the potential buyer with different kind of stories up the sleeve that is supposed to impose sympathy? As Oliver Twist is lured into Fagins lair and is taught to pick pockets without knowing what he is doing so is Star initially. At the point where she understands the rules and laws of the group, she is involved in such a way that she accepts the game and takes some very big risks and further compromises her own moral values.

The force of the movie is the depiction of the life on the road, the interaction between our marginalized young people and slowly getting to know our protagonist, who in the beginning is the silent observer and little by little starts to unfold her personality.

I can see that the movie is being criticized for being very long and not having a story that develops from a start- to an endpoint. I agree that some of the scenes are prolonged to a point that seems unnecessary. Besides this I think that this movie is a perfect example of how the truth often lies in the detail. This means that we need to dwell in some of the scenes and that the artistic challenge is to let this happen in a way that gets the audience involved.

Again I must express my deepest respect for director Andrea Arnold who has the rare ability to show a milieu in such a convincing way that it at certain points seems as if you are not watching a movie but instead a documentary but without losing the storytelling.

Regards Simon