Review of American Honey (2016) by Dawdlingpoet — 28 Nov 2021

This film didn't really appeal to me personally. It's a bit...meandering and I can't say I felt strongly about the main characters really. Star (the main character, a teen girl) seems a nice enough person behind the bravado I suppose but I can't say I felt especially gripped to see what happened next to her. There are some nice landscape shots and it does ok at showing things from the girls point of view but I suppose I was hoping for more of a stronger plotline. I also found it a bit hard to follow some of the dialogue at times, as it was a bit muffled. I can sort of see what the filmmakers were trying to do and I thought I'd watch it as it has a decent average rate on IMDB but I don't think I'm someone particularly keen on these somewhat aimless coming of age road trip type films. Shia LaBeouf gave quite a good performance and I suppose it did seem fairly genuine with the slightly wobbly camerawork somehow adding to the authenticity. It features quite a few songs - contemporary hip hop and R&B mostly. It's a gritty watch and its fairly depressing in tone but it's ok. I'm not sure I can say much more. I suppose the camerawork may be seen as a bit disorientating at times but then I suppose that's what the filmmakers were going for, in a way.

I wouldn't particularly recommend it as such, no.