American Honey

This Honey Ain’t No Boo-Boo Child

Opening:
Have you ever just taken a road trip somewhere only to find out you went nowhere except down the road to a Chili’s and been severely disappointed? This “movie” is that in a nutshell. Let’s get reel and break this down.

Plot:
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

Directing/Writing

Pros:
The “documentary” freestyle feeling of the film provides the atmosphere of real characters in real situations and never felt like a production but plucking real people off the street and filming them.

Cons:
I hate using the “P” word, not that word because clearly Trump doesn’t hate it, but pretentious. Sadly, this film tries to be deeper than it is. It is a vapid road trip self-discovery story with no substance and is equivalent to a three-hour B-roll home video of a bunch of montages put together. The overall story has interesting themes but they were never explored or went anywhere and instead appeared as strangely wholesome and sweet.

Acting

Pros:
Shia LaBeouf is by far the best thing about adding some character development and emotional range.

Cons:
Ironically, the main character’s performance isn’t so sweet but rather flat. I found the supporting characters somewhat interesting but overall no one was really compelling.

Cinematography

Pros:
Some of the cinematography is gorgeous and adds a layer of natural beauty considering they shot with all natural light and on real locations despite having a dark look at America at its core.

Cons:
Going to the pretentiousness, there many shots of insects or animals that weren’t particularly well shot or made sense for the narrative.


Editing/Special Effects

Pros:
None.

Cons:
At two hours and forty minutes, this is a chore to sit through and really tests your patience. Even with the long, tedious journey, if the ending was great I would have forgiven it a tad but the ending nothing and pretty much made the entire film a giant middle finger to the audience.

Overall:
Boyhood and Transformers: Age of Extinction both run around the same time length as American Honey. The difference is one is a masterwork of growing up, one is visual noise with action you could watch if you are on painkillers, and one existed. Guess one is which.

Grade:
D+
(Review by Chase Lee)