Review of American Honey (2016) by Viet Phuong N — 13 May 2017

Such a strange film. I was very impressed by the trailer of this film, which is sensuous, melancholic, and reminds me of my favourite coming-of-age films like "Almost Famous" or "A Brighter Summer Day".

The opening of this almost-three-hour-long film did reflect the spirit of the trailer, but along the way (as this is indeed a road film) it felt stranger and stranger. The carefree attitude of almost all characters, who are mostly coming-of-age, being put in a rough setting of the South Central U.

S. is often a harbinger of human tragedy, or at least unresolvable conflicts between hope and reality. Yet, this film just rolled through such pretext without much tension, and with only a little character development for the protagonist and no one else.

The soundtrack, which is wonderful by the quality of each song, did not help either, as its loud, and pervasive appearance sometimes drowned the thin veil of feeling and reflexion over the characters.

The camera work is equally strange, as the film's beautiful yellowish palette was sometimes destroyed by the unnecessarily shaky cinematography that tried its best to depict the film's characters up-close (a popular style of indie films these days) but failed to convey their thoughts, their inner conflicts, and their uncertain destiny.

With better character development, it would have been a very good coming-of-age film.