So I’m late on this for sure but I’m on a Shia LaBeouf kick and I finally took the plunge into the almost 3 hour saga that is “American Honey”.
I wanted to watch this movie for a while but whenever I saw that 2 hr 43 min run time I would cower and instead go on Twitter for 2 hr and 43 min. But, I’m such a big Shia LaBeouf guy and with his new movies “The Peanut Butter Falcon” and “Honey Boy” out now, I knew I couldn’t wait any longer to watch a film that is seemingly part of his “resurgence”. I put resurgence in quotes because while he may have left the main stream consciousness and gotten into a bit of trouble, any one who has been following him has seen the cool shit he’s been up to in the meantime. I truly believe he is going to have a moment similar to Matthew Mcconaughey in 2013 and everyone is going to pretend they always supported him. I want it marked down that ya’ll left my boy Shia. MARK IT DOWN!
Okay on to the movie (EXPECT SPOILERS!)
Overall, I liked it. It’s vivid and gritty and has one of the most realistic feelings to any movie I’ve ever watched. I was obsessed with the dialogue between the Mag Crew. I literally couldn’t tell what was scripted and what was ad libbed. Regardless, it’s incredibly impressive how fluid and natural the banter was between this crew of misfits. It made me feel uneasy and as if I was part of it all at once. That was the magic of the film.
This is going to sound snobby but I really enjoy when the non-plot aspects of a film mimic the themes of a film. For example, the fact that the lives of the kids in the Mag Crew are repetitive and the days are indistinguishable and it is all scored by the same 4-6 songs throughout the movie is *chefs kiss*. Maybe that’s a layup but I liked it regardless.
Stylistically, this movie is a delight and a visual trip. But, there are some things about this movie that left me with an old but familiar feeling. It wasn’t until a few days after watching it that I realized that the plot and structure of this movie plays very similar to a classic high school book assignment. Think Catcher In The Rye or Great Gatsby.
It’s just that so much of nothing happens in this movie. Like there is a clear story but technically nothing happens. There’s no real rising action. Just tons of exposition that ultimately doesn’t led to anything. And in that way it felt a lot like those high school book assignments. In high school when ever I was assigned a book of this nature I always felt like I was being punished or taught a lesson. These classic books are touted for their intense exploration of characters but in reality I think their main purpose was to teach kids patience and to not seek immediate gratification. Teachers would say it’s about finding the beauty between the lines but in reality it was just an exercise in being okay with unsatisfying endings. It always felt like books in high school were trying to prove the point that good stories aren’t exciting but rather teach you the principles of literature (similes, metaphors, character development, etc.). But its like no. Good stories are stories you want to share with others. I’ve never told anyone about Wuthering Heights. Stop pretending it’s your favorite book.
I may even categorize this movie as more infuriating than some of those high school books because it deploys an insane amount of foreshadowing to zero end. At least in Great Gatsby, the foreshadowing of a tragic ending comes to fruition. In American Honey, the main character’s demise is foreshadowed at least three separate times. She continually puts herself in terribly dangerous positions and ends up coming out unscathed. The audience waits in anticipation knowing that this sort of luck will not keep up. Now I didn’t need her story to end tragically. I’m okay with her escaping the life of the mag crew. A purposeful move to break the cycle of her impending doom would have been perfect. But that didn’t exactly happen either. The ending is ambiguous and gives an unclear indication of her fate.
Which brings me to my final point. Ambiguous endings are fine but they can’t be ambiguous for the sake of ambiguity. I’m okay with cliffhangers. I’m okay with the audience being left guessing. But this ending didn’t totally make sense. There wasn’t a last second hint leaving the audience to guess in perpetuity. There was no inception spinning top. She goes under the water and when she comes up from the water she is seemingly in a different place. I like when an ending is not completely explicit. I like when a story trusts the audience to come to there own conclusions. But this ending was so ambiguous it almost felt lazy. Unsatisfying at the least. And it’s not any better that it was a long movie. Makes it a bit less forgivable.
Well fuck, somehow I just wrote a book report on a movie that reminds me of a book I was assigned in high school but never read.
Still support you Shia!
