Shia LaBeouf’s Rat Tail Seduces Homeless Women In R-Rated Netflix Road Drama
Written by Robert Scucci | Published
I hated every minute of it American honey (2016), and rarely do I find zero redeeming qualities in a film. It’s not that it’s mentally bad. A quick trip to Rotten Tomatoes, where it holds a 79 percent approval rating, bears heavy weight there. It’s 163 minutes of a young lady trying to find herself while selling magazines with a bunch of other wanderers, but something about this really bothered me.
I think the problem I have American honey that there is no real goal or dream to hold on to. It’s stagnant, and while that was writer-director Andrea Arnold’s intention, it just didn’t get to me. I am not the right audience for this type of film. I like straightforward storytelling, too American honey pure slice of life. I don’t hate slice-of-life exits, but I still need some kind of goal, discipline, or adventure, and I’ve never found it here.
This could have been reduced to 90 minutes and worked the same way. Even then, I don’t think I would feel any differently American honey. I had the same reaction Nomadlandso take that for granted.
About 3 Hours of Absolutely Nothing
American honey focuses on Star (Sasha Lane). She lives in Oklahoma with her abusive father and is the primary caregiver for her siblings. He dumpster dives for food and lives a miserable life. You want to help him because it’s obvious that he’s been mistreated and wants something better. She can take night classes at the library, bump into a friend while doing stand-up, find shelter in another city to escape her abusive family while keeping an eye on her siblings from a safe but accessible distance. It wouldn’t be easy, but it is possible.
Instead, Star meets Jake (Shia LaBeouf with hidden rat tail hair), who likes to cause scenes while dancing at K-Mart. Their eyes lock and you are instantly smitten. She abandons her siblings because she’s completely sold out on being a traveling magazine salesman with Jake and his gang of villains, led by the attractive but manipulative Krystal (Riley Keough).
Here’s the rest of the way American honey you are kidding. Jake trains Star in sales. Star doesn’t like how Jake lies on social media door to door because it says everything you need to know about his moral compass. Star and Jake are in love, or at least Star thinks they are. Krystal is upset that Jake’s numbers have been slipping since Star joined the team. Krystal has Jake rub her with lotion in a motel room while Star looks on, marking her spot by making her mind as humiliating as possible.
Each day, Star gets into the van, wakes up in a new state, and repeats the cycle. You sell a ton of “subscriptions,” but you really run the game on a series of male cheaters. He never fully commits to prostitution, but plays just enough of a role to make a lot of money from his exploitation under the guise of running a low-level sales scam. Shia LaBeouf’s rat tail is wagging nicely when he admits that he has been stealing valuables from every house he enters. Star and Jake roam the lawn, people get betrayed, more magazines are sold. Yawn.
You Can Trace The Origins Of The First Machine To Someone Trying To Stop This Movie From Being Made
Call me old fashioned, but I like my movies to tell a story. It doesn’t matter if it’s straight forward, esoteric, non-linear, or different. There still needs to be something holding it together. In his mind, American honey uses its slice-of-life approach to show Star’s struggles, but we only get fleeting glimpses of where he came from and where he might be going. I understand that this is probably the point, and that I’m not picking up what it’s dropping, but I’m frustrated because there are interesting things going on throughout, but we’re only seeing the surface. Perhaps another deliberate artistic choice. It’s a perverse way to make a social commentary on this kind of life, but this movie begs to be seen as visceral and cathartic by sticking to something tangible. It doesn’t, so it feels like a complete waste of time.
Star is a complex character, shaped by her unstable upbringing. The same can be said for everyone he works with as they bounce between motels and sell subscriptions just to get together a per diem and enjoy their way through their youth and 20s. Everyone is running from something, and whatever that something is, it has to be bad enough for this life to feel like a better option. Most of these characters are probably trying to be good people, even if their instincts are completely wrong. That’s what interests me. To watch them all labor in this kind of limbo for so long is to underestimate the kind of resilience that is so actively celebrated. American honey.
Except for Jake. He’s in full chode mode throughout the movie, and every scene he’s in makes me wish time would go by faster.
My disappointment with American honey it comes from how many compelling stories are sitting right in front of you, but always just out of reach. Every character has something mysterious to explore, but instead we get a long reel of their antics as a collection. Even as a sizzle reel, it still runs for about three hours. The whole thing sounds like adult-adult porn; the kind of fantasy about escapism you have when you’re 15, when all you think you need to survive is a chance to blow dry and occasionally set off bottle rockets.
American honey is streaming on Netflix. Look at it. Even if you don’t. I don’t care.
