Butler's Cinema Scene

Shia LaBeouf, Sasha Lane

“AMERICAN HONEY”  My rating: B

163 minutes | MPAA rating: R

Andrea Arnold’s “American Honey” is about being young, horny, and blessedly free of  what adults view as “normal life.”

This near-plotless road trip across the Heartland (including a long sequence shot in Kansas City) is all about  the journey, not the destination. Arnold flirts with self-indulgence (some will say she positively wallows in it), but offers a haunting portrait of disaffected youth while surveying the vast emptiness (physical, moral, intellectual) that makes up so much of modern America.

We first encounter 18-year-old Star (newcomer Sasha Lane) somewhere just off the interstate in shit-kicker Oklahoma. She and two young children (her siblings? Perhaps the offspring of her redneck boyfriend?) are dumpster diving for lunch. They appear to be old hands at scrounging provisions.

But Star’s world is about to change.  At  the local K-Mart she encounters a crew of young people  behaving like a bunch of good-natured rowdies.  She’s particularly intrigued by their leader, Jake (Shia LaBeouf), a charismatic guy whose conservative shirt and slacks are in stark contrast to  his dangling rattail and bristly chin.

Oozing sly seduction, Jake explains that his party-hearty entourage sell magazine subscriptions door to door. Angel is welcome to join them.

The possibility of romance with Jake and the chance to leave her crummy life behind provide an irresistible temptation.

Not that her new world is all spliffs and cognac.

Jake answers to Crystal (Riley Keogh, Elvis Presley’s granddaughter), the owner of the operation. A decade older than her teen crew members, Crystal sports  the come-hither fashion sense and hardass authority of a whorehouse madam (“Show me you can do it or I’ll leave you on the side of the road”).

She’s a steel fist in a velvet glove kind of manager — she provides meals,  cheap motel lodging, weed and booze for her tribe of misfits, most of whom are running away from bad homes. She picks the neighborhoods they’re going to hit, sets sales quotas and pockets the money (whether the operation actually sells magazine subscriptions or just scams customers out of their cash is never explained).

While the youngsters are packed like sardines into a minivan, Crystal scouts ahead in her shiny white convertible — usually with Jake in the passenger seat.  It soon dawns on Angel that Jake is Crystal’s kept man…which only makes him sexier in her eyes.

Much of “American Honey” is devoted to simply observing how Angel’s new friends behave.  They’re a rambunctious bunch, always a bit stoned and ever ready to roughhouse or party down around a camp fire. Arnold has cast the film with non-actors, and they radiate uncontrollable energy. So unforced and spontaneous are these kids that they rub off even on the cast’s few professional actors, who eschew anything like conventional performance mannerisms.

There’s a marvelous sequence shot in Mission Hills (“Rich motherfuckers,” observes  Jake. “We’re hopin’ to do very well today.”) in which Jake and Angel, posing as brother and sister, charm their way into the home of an uptight suburban mom (Laura Kirk).

Riley Keough

Jake has an uncanny knack for instantly sizing up a mark and coming up with a suitable sales pitch.  Sometimes he’s selling subscriptions as part of a “college communication competition.” He might be working for an outfit called  Youth Chasing Dreams, or Covenant House.  Or he might pass himself off as a K-State student raising money for a new campus cafeteria.

And if a homeowner gets suspicious, Jake knows how to really turn on the charm: “I’m selling magazines,” he confides with supreme confidence, “but I’m also selling myself.”

Angel and Jake begin an affair beneath Crystal’s very nose — they’re playing with fire but the thrill is just too delicious.

And they’re always on the road.  The suburbs of Omaha. The booming oilfields of the Dakotas.

Like virtually all the characters, Lane’s Angel lives in the moment.  There’s no talk here of where characters come from or where they’re going, no heartrending sob stories.  What we see is what we get.

But in Lane writer/director Arnold (maker of the Brit coming-of-age drama “Fish Tank” and a wildly unconventional version of “Withering Heights”) has found a player so naturally compelling that we happily follow her even without the usual biographical background.

Lane’s innate watchability becomes even more important as “American Honey” kicks into its second hour.  Arnold is taking a big chance with a running time of nearly three hours. A movie of that length can be wearisome even with compelling plotting.  A languid road trip like this repeatedly threatens to wear out its welcome, but Lane keeps us focused and in anticipation of Angel’s next adventure.

And there’s something to be said for the way in which the long film captures the feel of the ride.  One day bleeds into the next, one night of partying echoes those that came before and those still to be experienced.

Eventually it will have to end. But for now there’s nothing but the road.

| Robert W. Butler