Andrea Arnold's American Honey finally gets a trailer. I saw it at Cannes and, suffice to say, was quite impressed by its loose, structure-free narrative. It's a pummeling 160 minutes, but has moments of sheer beauty in its inner and outer contours. I don't think there is much awards hope for this one as it is too "out-there" for the academy to consider, but a push by critics for their awards is inevitable. It's a love it/hate it movie, but consider me with the former as I dis find its take on 21st century Americana quite breathtaking.
"Andrea Arnold’s American Honey was an even more polarizing film. A 160 minute road trip to Americana hell, if you will. An On the Road for and about millennials. Cannes is not the last we’ll hear about this movie and I’m perfectly fine with that. No one should dismiss it, for it has so many great moments in its scattered running time that one might have to look through a bit of rambling incoherence to find them.
Non-professional actress Sasha Lane plays Star, a lost American soul that decides to hop onboard a bus full of Magazine-selling kids that go cross country to make money and sell magazine subscriptions. On the way they listen to pop radio and have sing alongs. Those sing-alongs end up taking up the full-length of a song. Some are quite exceptionally moving and exciting, whereas others meander. It’s just that kind of a movie, either you go with its flow or you just don’t. I did.
It’s not just singalongs. There’s an admirable sense of free-wheeling going on here. Arnold is depicting an American society of millennials that are disconnected and disconcerted with the American way. They’d rather sell their bodies than live in a capitalist-run society trying to live the “American dream”. As the film jogs along we get a fuller sense of the dynamics at play here. The structure, which is infuriating at times, runs constant repetitive circles, and yet we are fully engaged with much of what we see. There’s an overall sense of unimaginable freedom in Arnold’s filmmaking. It’s a vital, great movie that could probably use a trim."
If you've read this column for a while, you know the drill: I spitball Cannes every month from now until April, updating the latest intel and trying to figure out what will be in competition, vying for the Palme d'Or.