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. Written by

Plot Synopsis:
-------------------

----------------------------------------
paulmaccormaic from Dublin, Ireland
----------------------------------------

This is the worst film I have seen in 50 years of movies going. It is filmed in an irritating shaky hand held camera style that is mostly out of focus. using close up techniques that are pointless, it has long repetitious scenes of passengers in a minibus. The dialogue is slurred and unintelligible. The movie seems unscripted. There are long tedious and repetitious scenes of passengers in a minibus, who, to combat boredom, sing along to the radio. This happens about 5 or 6 times throughout the movie. It was painful to watch and I was left with a feeling of being stuck in a 3- hour traffic jam with no AC, no phone, no water and bursting to use the toilet. How anybody could rate this tiresome self-consciously pretentious film above a 1 is a mystery.

----------------------------------------
trublu215 from United States
----------------------------------------

American Honey follows a young woman as she embarks on a road trip of sorts with a bunch of hippies as they try to swindle their lives away in hopes of living in the purest of utopias. It is an indie film through and through. Everything from the story to the look reeks of an independent production which really intrigued me from the minute American Honey started. Despite this everlasting and enthralling feeling of watching pure art in the way of the indie eye as seen through director Andrea Arnold, I can't help but shake the feeling that this film could have been more. To start off, there really isn't anything terrible or bad about the film outside of its indulging and bloated running time of close to 3 hours. The acting is great, the cinematography is amazing, the soundtrack is arguably perfect and the story (while being paper thin) is acceptable. The biggest enemy the film has is itself. The editing is probably my biggest issue with the film because it ends up damaging the story through this overbearing and extremely indulgent pacing. At times, there are moments where the film is unrelenting. You can't wait to see what happens next. Then there are other moments that move so slow that you question whether or not to get up and stretch your legs. It ends up being a very frustrating film to watch because anyone can see that there is an undeniable masterpiece underneath the running time. A timeless story of youth and innocence is lost in a barrage of fire pit songs, drug fueled rage and useless character traits that end up being lost or muddled in, what felt like, an assembly cut of the film. Despite this, Andrea Arnold has a very keen eye and a natural ability to make her characters feel real even if the film is as boring as the average person. Whether or not this is what Andrea Arnold was going for, I have no idea. Overall, American Honey is a film that will most certainly test the patience of its audience but those who are fans of Arnold's Fish Tank, or just simply fans of character studies or coming of age stories, American Honey will certainly leave you feeling satisfied.

----------------------------------------
tanyax99
----------------------------------------

This is the worst film I have seen in my entire life of diverse movie going. The cinematography is irritatingly shaky and the performances are incredibly insincere, broad and maudlin. There are long, very tiresome and overused scenes of passengers in a minibus, who sing along to the radio --- what is important, unique, interesting, artful about that? It's lazy filmmaking, unlike the director's previous film which was a beautiful piece of work. It was painful to watch and I was left with a feeling of being stuck in the worst traffic of my life for three hours with nothing to do but just stare at the ineptitude of the drivers before me. The accolades on this film is just a mystery to me.

----------------------------------------
www.ramascreen.com from United States
----------------------------------------

Much of Andrea Arnold's American HONEY reminds me of Larry Clark's 1995 film, "Kids," struggling adolescent years, but American HONEY is much more nuanced in that on one hand you have this somewhat social commentary about how we are the richest nation in the world and yet so many of our teens live in poverty and they have to hustle and do certain demeaning things just to get by, just to survive, just to feed themselves. On the other hand, you could see American HONEY from the perspective of the characters and the impressive way in which they organize, you can see their selling and marketing skills, despite it being a scam and rough around the edges. They're doing what wall street does basically but on a smaller, smaller, way smaller scale.

Sasha Lane plays free spirited teenage named star who leaves her troubled trashy home to go on a road trip with traveling laborers her age, they go from town to town, door to door, to sell magazines. Riley Keough plays Krystal, the leader of the crew, and Shia LaBeouf plays Jake, who recruits new members. There's freedom and hard partying that come with this life, Star doesn't essentially agree with some of the group's methods, although young love and jealousy ultimately motivate Star to bend her own morality rule just to prove herself.

Firstly, just a heads up, this movie is 163 minutes long, probably not quite as long as those "Hobbit" movies but definitely one that you'd have to be willing to set aside a big chunk of your evening for, should you want to check out this film. I have to give credit to writer/director Andrea Arnold, not only for this raw depiction of American youth living on the margins, but also the casting decisions, the actors in this film are so convincing, in terms of their looks, their attitude and the way they carry themselves, you start to wonder if they really do live on the margins. Many of the moments in the film are spent on the characters bonding, so it seems that, and I'm assuming, cinematographer Robbie Ryan had to sit inside that van and operate the camera around as one character has their dialogue with another, and it's already crowded as it is, it'd be interesting to see behind-the-scenes video on how they pulled that off.

Arnold is not focusing on income disparity in the inner cities, nope, American HONEY showcases income disparity out in the plain fields of the American midwest. But this isn't some kind of poverty extravaganza either like "Winter's Bone," or "Slumdog Millionaire," the characters in American HONEY get by, they do OK one day at a time, but they undergo unforgiving journeys through suburban sprawl through small towns clearly affected by economic downturn, and you see the resilience in their hearts. You may disagree with their methods, some might even see it as dangerous but what can a fractured, abandoned life can do but to fill the cracks however way they can. They're still teenagers going through crushes and heartbreaks, your usual teenage ordeals, but they're also in a situation where they're forced to be independent adults faster, and Andrea Arnold beautifully captures all of that in American HONEY.

-- Rama's Screen --

----------------------------------------
tyleramato-28680 from Pennsylvania
----------------------------------------

Andrea Arnold's "American Honey" is a bold and ambitious film filled with good performances, and for the most part I like this film, but boy does it have a ton of pitfalls. "American Honey" is repetitive, bombastic, overlong, and filled with unlikable characters, and most of the repetitiveness comes from these characters constantly listening to and singing to rap music in their white van. Sitting through 2 hours and 43 minutes of this film felt more like a chore than a cinematic experience. I'm looking forward to what Andrea Arnold has in store for us next, I truly am, and hopefully her next film won't be as preposterously long as this.

----------------------------------------
tobajoma from United States
----------------------------------------

Who would believe that any of these trashy characters could even sell one magazine subscription, let alone enough to make a profit for themselves and their equally trashy supervisor ? If anyone looking like this raunchy crew even rang my bell, I would tell them I wasn't interested before I even knew what they wanted even if it was to sign a petition to endorse a candidate or issue I was in favor of. As someone pointed out early on, hardly anybody buys magazines anymore (and if they did they would buy it at a discount from an online site or a direct mailing, not at an inflated price from someone who looks like they crawled out from under a rock). Forget their stories, I can't imagine anyone would even open the doors for them. I assumed when they were talking about their "mission", they would at least clean up their act before attempting to approach their wealthy targets. In what fantasy do rich home owners invite grungy-looking adolescents into their home unless they know them ? Any other comment about this movie is unnecessary.

----------------------------------------
Harrison Tweed from Canada
----------------------------------------

What was the point of this film?

2 hours and 43 minutes of what... cramped van rides with degenerates and a bad iTunes playlist! Did the editing department forget to cut out the useless parts? No wait, then the film may only have been 30 minutes. But then again, I may have enjoyed those 30 minutes!

There is no building up to something... anything. There is no story here, no climax, no one to route for or against. Just a sad perspective of everyday reality that I can experience walking around the slums.

Shaky cam went out years ago. And what's with the idiotic 1980's tube-TV aspect ratio of 1.37:1?? I've seen better amateur video recordings on an iPhone along with the acceptable fit-in-my-TV- screen aspect ratio. It really was annoying.

Let's waste film on capturing flies on a car, for at least 10 seconds. Or peeing in a field. Or taking a bug out of a pool. Maybe there was a message, but I was struggling to keep my eyes open to notice it.

Sure, this was a very visual piece of work (hence my score of 2 instead of 1), but why did I have to suffer for all that time? The average National Geographic piece is only 60 minutes and does not cost 3.5 million to make! Seriously, where did all that budget go to? Not effects. Not cameras. Not sound/score. Not editing. Not vehicles. Not motels.

I am stunned by all the fake high ratings and praise for this film. Notice I did not once relate to it as a movie as it is not, it's a film, a video of someone with a cam that was bored and followed around a group of misfits around the country. That is all. Don't waste your time like I did.

----------------------------------------
Garry White from Nashville, Tennessee
----------------------------------------

If you want to watch a movie with no plot where you don't like a single character in the film and you keep waiting for something meaningful that never comes, except anxiety and depression, until you finally get to the pointless NON-ending - be sure and watch American Honey. You will waste 2 hours and 45 minutes of your life and then wish you would've turned it off at least one of the 1000 times you thought about it.

This movie rambles along endlessly. Just when you start to identify with a character, or sympathize or start to develop an understanding of them or have some level of sadness or joy for them, the writers undermind your intelligence by placing them in situations which would not make sense or have them do something no one would with any sense would do. There are a few scenes where you say to yourself, "ok, here we go... finally" only to be sucker punched again. HORRIBLE MOVIE.

----------------------------------------
ejw-71267 from United States
----------------------------------------

Do not waste your time watching this totally meaningless film.

I thought with the high user reviews, and with Shia LaBeouf in it, it might be worth watching. I was wrong! This is one of the worse films I've seen in years. There's really no story to this movie. I kept waiting for something to happen, nothing ever did. While the acting and directing are OK, the script is extremely lame. Why make it two and half hours long?! It could either go on forever or have ended in the middle of the film, it would NOT have make any difference.

A total waste of time in my opinion. How it got nominations and won several awards jut confuse the hell out of me.

----------------------------------------
nicoloszenberg from Milan
----------------------------------------

This is by far the worst movie I ever seen in my life. The actors are doing a great job, but the problem of the movie is not with the acting, the problem is that the movie is tremendously long, boring, pretentious and a very bad example for the young generations. It is a movie about lost teens who live on the road, with no rules and no respect for anybody out of their herd. And the most irritating thing is that a kid, watching this movie, might think that such kind of life could be cool, an example to follow. From the other side, being boring, long, pretentious, the critics might like it. Do not lose your time in watching, but if you do, avoid that your kids watch it.

road movie|male frontal nudity|sex scene|male full frontal nudity|road trip|public nudity|naked in public|male rear nudity|nudity|male pubic hair|pubic hair|f rated|incest|cigarette smoking|dancing|oil field|masturbation|salesman|money|pushed into a swimming pool|written by director|two word title|swimming pool|line dancing|dance|first love|hip hop|crystal meth|male nudity|gay kiss|female nudity|

AKAs Titles:


Certifications:
Australia:MA15+ / Canada:18A (British Columbia) / Germany:12 / Mexico:B15 / Norway:15 / Portugal:M/16 / Sweden:11 / Switzerland:16 / UK:15 / USA:R (certificate #50391)