American Honey

  • 163'
  • United Kingdom
  • 2016

“Anybody gonna miss you?” “Not really.” “Good, you’re hired.” This is how teenager Star (a striking debut by Sasha Lane) begins a career as a hawker of magazines when she leaves home and joins a motley group of young people (most of whom are played by amateurs) as they smoke weed, sing, make love, steal, quarrel and fight their way across the USA in a van, in the first American film by British director Andrea Arnold (Fish Tank, Wuthering Heights).
This energetically meandering On the Road for millennials has a soundtrack rich in hip-hop and is filmed in a hand-held, documentary style. Here, freedom is not (as it was for Kerouac) the dream, but the enemy. Like all road movies, American Honey is about an inner journey (along the way Star falls for her flirty colleague Jake, played by Shia LaBeouf), meanwhile giving a rare impression of young people trying to find their way in the underbelly of American society.

Also see Masterclass Andrea Arnold

  • 163'
  • United Kingdom
  • 2016
Director
Andrea Arnold
Countries of production
United Kingdom, USA
Year
2016
Festival Edition
IFFR 2017
Length
163'
Medium
DCP
Language
English
Producers
Lars Knudsen, Jay Van Hoy, Pouya Shahbazian, Alice Weinberg, Thomas Benski, Lucas Ochoa
Production Companies
Parts & Labor Films, Maven Pictures, Pulse Films
Sales
Protagonist Pictures
Screenplay
Andrea Arnold
Cinematography
Robbie Ryan
Editor
Joe Bini
Production Design
Kelly McGehee
Music
Clarence B. Hutchinson
Cast
Sasha Lane, Shia LaBeouf, Riley Keough, McCaul Lombardi, Arielle Holmes, Crystal Ice, Veronica Ezell
Local Distributor
Cinéart Netherlands
Director
Andrea Arnold
Countries of production
United Kingdom, USA
Year
2016
Festival Edition
IFFR 2017
Length
163'
Medium
DCP
Language
English
Producers
Lars Knudsen, Jay Van Hoy, Pouya Shahbazian, Alice Weinberg, Thomas Benski, Lucas Ochoa
Production Companies
Parts & Labor Films, Maven Pictures, Pulse Films
Sales
Protagonist Pictures
Screenplay
Andrea Arnold
Cinematography
Robbie Ryan
Editor
Joe Bini
Production Design
Kelly McGehee
Music
Clarence B. Hutchinson
Cast
Sasha Lane, Shia LaBeouf, Riley Keough, McCaul Lombardi, Arielle Holmes, Crystal Ice, Veronica Ezell
Local Distributor
Cinéart Netherlands