American Honey

Director Andrea Arnold with young protégé Sasha Lane

AMERICAN HONEY           B+      

Great Britain  USA  (162 mi)  2016  d:  Andrea Arnold 

 

I won’t compromise
I won’t live a life
On my knees
You think I am nothing
I am nothing
You've got something coming
Something coming because

I hear God’s whisper
Calling my name
It’s in the wind
I am the savior

 

—Raury “God’s Whisper” 2014, Raury - God's Whisper (Official Video) - YouTube (4:39)

 

A film with an attitude, where sometimes in the Darwinian universe that’s all one has from those at the bottom to keep them alive.  Winner of the Jury Prize (3rd Place) at Cannes, the director’s third instance of receiving this award following RED ROAD (2006) and FISH TANK (2009), while also receiving an Official Commendation from the Ecumenical Jury, as the film reveals “mysterious depths of human beings,” the film is skillfully directed, where the director’s talent for getting extraordinary performances out of non-professionals is what makes this movie tick.  This is another film with a European view of America, similar to Antonioni’s Zabriskie Point (1970), Wim Wenders Alice in the Cities (Alice in den Städten) Road Trilogy Pt. 1  (1974) and Paris, Texas (1984), but also Aki Kaurismäki’s LENINGRAD COWBOYS GO AMERICA (1988), Emir Kusturica’s ARIZONA DREAM (1993), Bruno Dumont’s TWENTYNINE PALMS (2003), or perhaps the least seen and maybe the most delightful of them all, Percy Adlon’s BAGHDAD CAFÉ (1987).  These directors bring a curious eye to the American landscape, often adding their own humorous insights, but they also capture a completely different mood and set of questions about the world we live in.  Roughly based on the startling abuses discovered in a 2007 New York Times article ("For Youths, a Grim Tour on Magazine Crews") about traveling groups of teenagers, many of them runaways or from broken homes, who sell magazine subscriptions for unscrupulous managers that show little sympathy for their best interests and instead drop them off anywhere along the road if they don’t produce, ruthlessly exploiting them for minimum pay, working purely on commission, as they only earn 25% of all subscriptions sold, but nearly all end up spending most of what they earn for daily needs, as what they’re provided is not nearly enough.  A Congressional investigation in 1987 uncovered 418 sellers, where 413 remained in debt to the company, while the managers themselves reported huge profits.  If sellers regularly had poor success rates or complained about the job, enforcers were brought in to instigate violent beatings.  The behavior of the managers unfortunately resembles pimps in the sex industry, where they intimidate and resort to cruel and excessive punishment to guarantee they get their money.  A grotesque portrait of capitalism, suggesting it is alive and well, where sometimes art is meant to be uncomfortable, and here it’s aimed as a heat-seeking missile directly into the heart of the status quo. 

 

Getting a better critical reception than when it was released at Cannes, one of the criticisms of the film is just how blunt it tends to be, offering a wrenching view of poverty in America, and an explosive, in-your-face look at throwaway kids living off the grid, barely garnering enough attention to matter even in their own lives, where instead they are seen as a forgotten or lost generation, as their parents and families have little use for them, while a nation barely notices.  So the film focuses on a rag-tag group of teenage dropouts and misfits in search of something better than the often disturbing places they are leaving behind, with ringleaders signing them up to work as a team of about a dozen kids from various places across the country selling overpriced magazine subscriptions that people don’t really want to buy, literally dropping them off in targeted neighborhoods while they spend their day going door-to-door as they make their way in a van traveling across the heartland of the American Midwest, stopping in cheap motels along the way, where they tend to drink heavily and do drugs, often partying long into the night.  Rather than sell the magazine, each kid has to sell themselves, using some imaginative, heart-tugging technique to grab someone’s attention straightaway, then using fabricated or personalized embellishments about how they’re trying to better themselves, making the buyer feel good about their potential investment, that it’s going to a good cause.  The audience wants to believe in these kids, even as we learn it’s all a scam.  To Arnold’s credit, the spirit of the film is uncompromising, as nothing is soft peddled, offering a damaged portrait of the American Dream conveyed through a bleak tone of broken lives, yet it’s filled with a youthful exuberance that’s beautifully expressed by a brash contemporary soundtrack reverberating throughout the film, much like the communal spirit of this song, Raury - God's Whisper (Official Video) - YouTube (4:39), where the incessant flow of extended music video style images are so in tune with the characters onscreen that almost every kid knows the lyrics to each and every song, becoming an anthem to lost and disaffected youth, as the downbeat tone and searing social realism breaks out into a musical format, as if the music has a spiritually cleansing effect, shaking them out of their doldrums, resuscitating their wounded souls, and literally bringing these kids back to life.  It is this energy they feed on, more than any junk food they eat for nourishment, sticking with the audience long after they’ve left the theater.  

 

While casting took pace in Oklahoma, searching beaches, construction sites, parking lots, and street activity, the lead character Sasha Lane was discovered while sunbathing on spring break in Panama City, Florida.  A 20-year old student at Texas State University, she was at a crossroads, trying to get her life back on track when she met Andrea Arnold, who auditioned her in the hotel where she was staying, offering an opportunity to go on the road for two months filming a movie.  Shooting in Muskogee, Okmulgee, and Norman, Oklahoma, the crew traveled to Mission Hills and Kansas City, Kansas, Omaha and Grand Island, Nebraska, going as far north as Williston, North Dakota.  The opening sequence plays out like a prelude, yet typifies the lives of so many others, as Star (Sasha Lane), a fragile soul in dreads, is living a dead-end existence somewhere in Texas dumpster diving and taking care of two kids that don’t even belong to her, while living with an older, abusive guy who’s more interested in staying drunk and getting high.  By chance, she spies a group of kids pulling off the road into a Wal-Mart parking lot, where in the store she makes eye contact with one of them, Jake (Shia LaBeouf), who immediately starts flirting with her, jumping on the check-out counter, dancing to the upbeat vibe of the piped-in music, Rihanna’s “We Found Love,” American Honey | We Found Love | Official Clip HD YouTube (1:34).  Transfixed by his personal magnetism, as well as the expressive abandon of the entire group, Jake turns out to be a recruiter for the mag-crew, encouraging her to join them, suggesting she be at a Motel 6 the next morning, as they’re leaving for Kansas.  It’s only then that we’re offered a window into her deplorable homelife.  On the spot she decides to leave, sneaking out the window, marching both kids over to a local country western bar featuring line dancing and dropping them off with their stunned real mother, "American Honey", extrait du film YouTube (1:17).  By morning she is heading to Kansas, suddenly free as a bird.  While this carefree group of characters feels upbeat, constantly joking and horsing around with each other, they each similarly have no one else in the world to call a friend, as all they have is each other.  Star’s uninhibited, free-spirited nature doesn’t kick in at first, where she’s unfamiliar with their near cult camaraderie, discovering they share the same kind of groupthink that’s been beaten into their heads by their cutthroat boss, a surprisingly strict Riley Keough (Elvis Presley’s granddaughter) as Krystal, a woman who takes most of the profits and has Jake completely under her thumb.  She has no problem with their foolish shenanigans of staying wasted on the road so long as the crew brings her money.  Consider her George C. Scott from THE HUSTLER (1961).  At her most manipulative, she reads Star the riot act while clad in a Confederate bikini with the price tag still hanging from it, with Jake dutifully oiling her legs, just for good measure, American Honey | Krystal's Motel | Official Clip HD YouTube (1:42).  She leaves no question about who’s in charge, aligning her troops on the street every day with military precision.  At the end of the day, those who sell the least are forced to fight each other, with the others looking on with heightened interest.     

 

Arnold has a tendency to showcase young underprivileged women characters, but the electrically charged Star surprises even herself, as she sabotages Jake’s pitch when it turns too manipulating, finding it morally objectionable, something she cannot bring herself to do, while Krystal is wired to believe lying and selling are the same thing, suggesting that’s the business of making money.  Instead, Star has a tendency to go off script, engaging in extremely risky behavior, where she comes across as somewhat pure or saint-like in an otherwise bleak universe engulfing her, where she has a habit of saving bugs or insects, and is even visited by a friendly bear at one point, though this may just be imagined, and while she continually puts herself in harm’s way, jumping alone into groups of strange men, convinced they will purchase magazine subscriptions, she retains a spirited attitude throughout her entire ordeal, where her face is constantly on camera, where a light seems to follow her wherever she goes.  Beautifully shot by Robbie Ryan, working regularly with Ken Loach as well as Andrea Arnold, who seems to find a balance between well-manicured suburban lawns and dilapidated houses on the outskirts of town, taking in the entire spectrum of social classes, where easily the most affecting are those experiencing profound poverty, living in hopeless circumstances where small children are routinely left alone, with one young girl, a child of meth addicts, proudly spouting the lines of a Dead Kennedy’s song “I Kill Children.”  Despite the length of the film, the stream of images onscreen feels like a barrage to the senses, a joyous and optimistic journey that is musically transformative, with every day feeling like the 4th of July, although there is excessive drug and alcohol use, where it’s hard to believe they could actually perform cognitively under such a constant onslaught, yet there is no one watching over these kids, who are free to willingly walk in their own shoes and make their own mistakes in life.  What the film has is a distinguishing swagger, where there’s a boldness in their discovery of personal liberation, in their willingness to defy conventional wisdom, yet these risks have a downside, as there are consequences for going too far.  Star’s moodiness with Jake leads to a drop in his sales, where there’s some question whether she can actually cut it, which forces her to recklessly take even greater risks.  While there’s an undeniable attraction between them from the outset, as he’s the only reason she joined in the first place, their whirlwind romance is only briefly interjected throughout, as it’s constantly thwarted by Krystal’s dominating presence.  Shia LaBeouf is outstanding, where all he has to do is just be himself, charming, impulsive, dangerous, yet incredibly flawed.  The film is extremely well directed and has a beautiful rambling flow about it, but there’s not much of an actual story, as there’s no real beginning or end, much like the undeveloped lives of these kids, suggesting an impressionistic, stream-of-conscious montage of youthful impulses, where it’s as much about a yearning to be free as it is a deplorable picture of capitalistic exploitation, yet perhaps its greatest strength lies in vividly capturing the lives of discarded kids who are barely ever acknowledged, who feel they have no future, no place in society, yet remain among our most vulnerable, living a shadow existence that most of us never see. 

 

American Honey Soundtrack on Spotify

The Company You Keep

THE COMPANY YOU KEEP            C   
USA  (125 mi)  2013  ‘Scope  d:  Robert Redford                    Official site

This is the movie equivalent of Bill Clinton proclaiming he smoked pot in his youth, but never inhaled.  Here Robert Redford stars as a man with a connection to the Weather Underground, but he was never involved with any actual killings.  In both cases, these are sanctimoniously moral men used to having it both ways.  In real life, this rarely works, as people find it incredulous and far too inconceivable to believe.  This is the kind of film that gives liberals a bad name, as they appear to be morally superior and above judging themselves as part of history, which is exactly how Redford is portrayed in this film.  He was part of the problem without actually being part of the problem, remaining a valiant white knight who fought against the Vietnam War but remains innocent and squeaky clean against any pending legal charges.  It would be quite a different story had he actually taken responsibility for his involvement, as did Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn, married activists when in 1980 they turned themselves in, as both were leaders of the Weather Underground and participated in the Days of Rage riot in Chicago in October 1969, as well as the bombing of the United States Capitol, the Pentagon, and several police stations in New York, going underground in early 1970, living under fictitious identities for a decade.  Charges were dropped against Ayers when it was revealed that undercover FBI agents were also involved in the bombings, while Dohrn received probation.  Despite passing both the New York and Illinois bar exams, she was turned down by the Illinois ethics committee because of her criminal record.  Nonetheless, both Ayers and Dohrn taught at the University of Illinois at Chicago and the Northwestern University School of Law respectively, where Dohrn was the founder and director of the Children and Family Justice Center.  After they vacated their outstanding legal troubles, both adopted Chesa Boudin, the child of Kathy Boudin and David Gilbert, two former members of the Weather Underground who were sentenced to murder in 1984 for their roles in an armored car robbery, serving nearly 20 years.  This brief bit of history contrasts against such a tame movie version that refuses to take a stand, as these are real people leading real lives, never regretting or showing remorse for their radical activism of the 60’s and 70’s, as the U.S. government has never apologized to the Vietnamese or those dead or injured Americans who lost their lives under the ruse of fighting the spread of communism in Asia.   

Based on the conservative political climate that exists today, the real political story could never be told in Hollywood movies, evidenced by Clint Eastwood’s J. Edgar (2011), as the production company would be perceived as endorsing or advocating the events shown, even though it happened forty years ago when the majority of the country was actually against the war in Vietnam, yet the government persisted, using illegal and unethical FBI tactics under the COINTELPRO operation to infiltrate the civil rights and anti-war movements as subversive and potentially terrorist operations.  So what we get instead is this watered down liberal mix of a feel good movie that pats the writers on the back for attempting to deal with such a hot button issue in the nation’s history, without ever actually dealing with it at all.  Unlike much better films, Billy Ray’s SHATTERED GLASS (2003) or BREACH (2007), more intelligent stories about investigative journalism and trading government secrets that actually generate some tension and suspense, this film plays fast and loose with the details and specifics, filling in the blanks about who the Weather Underground were in a brief thirty second news report from the era, told in broad generalizations, never even mentioning the accumulating opposition against the war expressed through anti-war demonstrations and through dissenting 1968 Democratic Presidential candidates Eugene McCarthy and Robert Kennedy (before he was assassinated).  While we do get the FBI’s point of view that this was considered an armed and dangerous terrorist group, never seen in any historical context, the actual members can’t even agree among themselves what they stood for, even after decades in time.  This muddled view of the American past is something of an embarrassment both to the right and to the left and to all viewers, as it doesn’t tell the truth, but finds a way to continually talk around what happened, using generalities in the absence of facts.  What this film does have going for it is a killer cast, featuring significant players even in small roles, but whose presence overall is a huge plus for the movie.  Shia LaBeouf is excellent as Ben Shepard, a dogged reporter from Albany, New York, whose persistence in digging up the past is what makes the film and gives it a narrative shape, especially the way he can’t play by the rules if he actually wants the story, where following valuable leads will always exceed narrow budget restraints, especially when it takes you on a circuitous path across the nation. 

When Sharon Solarz (Susan Sarandon), a vanished member of the Weather Underground from the 60’s, gets caught by the FBI, ironically it was on the way to turn herself in, where rather than living a life defined by fleeing from the FBI, it’s possible to have a second chance at life.  But her arrest stirs up the kettle, as it affects all the others who remain under secret identities across the country.  One of the first to understand the ramifications is liberal small town lawyer Jim Grant (Robert Redford), who has a 9-year old daughter whose mother died in a car crash a year ago.  For her sake, Grant, who is really Nick Sloan, still on the FBI most wanted list, disappears, leaving his daughter with his brother while he eludes the police and goes on the run.  Shepard got in a few early questions before he disappeared, writing an incriminating exposé, which gets the wheels in motion.  Solarz will only talk to Shepard in prison, giving him another exclusive, but which puts him at odds with the FBI who see him in collusion with the radical 60’s groups.  The rest of the film is a chase between several of the major players of the past, which include Nick Nolte, Richard Jenkins, who have somehow retained some semblance of their former lives, and Julie Christie, elusive as ever, still on the lam.  While there are various other connections to boot, where Ana Kendricks plays an FBI mole, Brendan Gleeson plays a retired police commissioner who handled a notorious Weather Underground bank robbery case where someone got killed, and Brit Marling is his well educated daughter.  Terrence Howard as the FBI agent in charge is the weakest link, as he is little more than a stereotype, adding no characterization whatsoever, while all the others feel like plausible people we might know that could conceivably be wrapped up in a circumstance like this.  While it’s seen as a race against time, there’s never much doubt about what will eventually happen, given a sketchy Cliff Notes history lesson of the era, told using the broadest strokes possible, where the important lesson of the day is to not make quick judgments, but we never hear what separated these radical few from the countless others who demonstrated peacefully, where the film doesn’t even attempt to bridge this gap.  In other words, it’s just another Hollywood movie where Redford’s character is a noble hero and the viewer is left to stand and admire.  By the end of the film, the character he is memorializing is so whitewashed and stripped of politics that he could just as easily be the reclusive Unabomber.  How far he has fallen from his own days of rage as the Condor in Sydney Pollack’s riveting THREE DAYS OF THE CONDOR (1975), certainly one of the better fear and paranoia conspiracy films of the 70’s, where the moody synthesizer score from Cliff Martinez pays proper tribute.      

A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints

A GUIDE TO RECOGNIZING YOUR SAINTS                    B-                   

USA  (98 mi)  2006  d:  Dito Montiel

A well-meaning, heartfelt effort that gets caught up in its own love for itself, that probably places too much emphasis on the worth and emphasis of its autobiographical significance.  Ultimately, it means less to us than it does for first time writer and director Dito Montiel who made a movie telling the story of his life growing up in Astoria, Queens, where it was shot.  Whether he has another movie in him, we’ll have to see, but this one, structurally, attempts to capture the street realism with jumpy hand-held camera action, overlapping dialogue laced with effusive profanity, scenes that are prone to explode in violent overreaction and characters yelling at the top of their lungs, also of course, an adolescent mentality where decisions are made instantly, on the spur of the moment, and lives are ruined or lost in the blink of an eye. 

The best thing about this film is the strength of the performances, which is evident in the opening shot, a close up on Diane Wiest that nearly brings tears in the opening 30 seconds as she makes a telephone call to Dito, who has been away from home for fifteen years, but is called back home due to the deteriorating health of his father, Chazz Palminteri.  After a brief glimpse of Dito in the present, who is being recognized for his latest book by the film name, the film breaks into an interwoven flashback structure revealing the summer of 1986, only occasionally returning to the present until the end, which is much less developed.  Dito is played in the present by Robert Downey Jr, who has recollections of his haunted past as he returns home, where as a teen he is played by Shia LaBeouf, a kid filled with the curiosity and vitality of youth, but who strangely gets caught up in the middle of a graffiti war that resembles gang behavior, though the film clearly de-emphasizes Dito’s gangland affiliation.  Instead, it’s more like roving neighborhood kids who never leave the neighborhood, who, for better or for worse, are stuck with each other in their claustrophobic environment.  Melonie Diaz is eye-opening as an alluring Puerto Rican girl that becomes Dito’s girl friend, played later by Rosario Dawson, who hangs in a pack with trash-mouths Julia Garro and Eleonore Hendricks, while Dito hangs with Antonio (Channing Tatum), a barely literate extremely physical Stanley Kowalski wannabe while still a teen, a brooding, anguished guy with an abusive father who responds only from his gut, having already lost all faith in himself, while hanging out with guys called Joey, Nerf, and Antonio’s mildly retarded brother Giuseppe. 

The opening monologue from Downey Jr. as Dito makes it clear as he introduces the characters from his book that good things don’t await most of them, as some end up dead or in prison, as everyone’s lives swerve off course at the same time, yet whether still alive or not, they’re all real.  Despite being a teenage coming of age film, there’s surprisingly little focus on sex or AIDS, which were certainly the rage in the 80’s, and instead becomes a series of memory tributes, barely holding them all together by the end, where, for whatever reason, Dito has disassociated himself from all family and friends, and resembles a downbeat ghost of his former self when he returns home, yet he’s clearly convinced that each one of them had a hand in his ultimate survival.  Unfortunately, this film resembles a style we’ve seen before in much better films, MEAN STREETS (1973) or RUMBLE FISH (1983), which were more startlingly original, where the profanity-laced dialogue felt more natural and fit such a unique cinematic expression.  This is a Sundance Institute product that resembles the naturalistic indie style of RAISING VICTOR VARGAS (2002) or the recent QUINCEAÑERA (2006), all in my view, much better films.  Stick around for the end credits, as there’s a brief real-life autobiographical sequence “after” the credits have finished rolling.