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AMERICAN HONEY (15)
AMERICAN HONEY (15)
Run time: 164 mins
Director: Andrea Arnold
Cast: Sacha Lane, Shia LaBeouf, Riley Keough, McCaul Lombardi
Synopsis: Star (Sasha Lane), an adolescent girl from a troubled home, runs away with a travelling sales crew who drive across the American Midwest selling magazine subscriptions door to door. Finding her feet in this gang of teenagers, one of whom is Jake (Shia LaBeouf), she soon gets into the group’s lifestyle of hard-partying nights, law-bending days, and young love. For her first feature set and filmed in the U.S., British writer/director Andrea Arnold envisioned a story rooted in the realism and nuance of its characters and what she experienced while travelling across America. At its heart is Star, a teenage girl on the brink of adulthood who hits the road in search of independence while struggling to untangle what it feels like to fall in love.
URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gu–mZpcCAY
Screening type: 2D
A teen runaway embarks on a hard-partying adventure across America in this bold, vibrant road movie.
Troubled 18-year-old Star (Sasha Lane) doesn’t have much of a future to look forward to in dirt-poor Muskogee, Oklahoma. So when she meets up with a band of carefree misfits who offer her the opportunity for a fun-packed road trip, she immediately abandons all her responsibilities to join them. Led by the charismatic Jake (Shia LaBeouf), they scratch a living by selling magazine subscriptions door-to-door across the US Midwest. Before long, Star is swept up in their petty crime-fuelled party lifestyle and finds herself falling for Jake – much to the fury of his hard-nosed girlfriend, Krystal (Riley Keough).
This award-winning first US film by brilliant British director Andrea Arnold, who gave us Red Road (2006) and Fish Tank (2009), is a freewheeling, music-driven blend of teenage thrills and giddy romance – an exhilarating and intoxicating sensory experience. Shia LaBeouf is on excellent form, while newcomer Sasha Lane is simply sensational.
The cinematography from Robbie Ryan [Philomena (2013), Slow West (2015), Jimmy’s Hall (2014)] is visually stunning (in the squarer Academy ratio) as this hard-partying, teenage gang travel through the American Midwest on a crazy – though rather overlong – journey of self-discovery.
Images courtesy of Universal