AMERICAN HONEY
★★★★★
FROMFEBRUARY 2 0 /RATEDMA15+/DIRECTOR
ANDREA ARNOLD/CASTSASHA LANE,SHIA LABEOUF,
RILEY KEOUGH, MCCAUL LOMBARDI
Dazed andconfused
TEENAGETROUBLE-
MAGNETStar(newcomer
Sasha Lane, in one of the most
impressive debuts of recent
memory)lees her grim life in
Oklahoma with an anarchic
vanful of teens travellingacross middle
America selling magazine subscriptions.
This semi-improvised road movie starts
strongout of thegate, buildinga sense of
impending menace — running away from one
abusive dead-end relationship into a van full of
stoned misits isperhaps the deinition of frying
pan to ire — and things onlyseemgrimmer
when Star’s non-conformist streak, and instant
chemistrywith Shia LaBeouf ’s Jake,puts her in
the bomb sights of crew leader Krystal (Riley
Keough, nailing the character of a dead-eyed
trailer-trash entrepreneur.)
Powered by self-destructive tendencies
—part naïve faith in others, part indifference to
her own future — Star seems destined for
immolation. But writer-director Andrea Arnold
doesn’t seemquite sure what to do with the
machine she has set in motion,and it’s hard to
blame her for beingtooprotective of her
leadinglady— if the word “luminous” is
overused, it trulysuits Lane. And so the third
act izzles, or at least fails to capitalise on the
energyof the beginning.
For all the dourness of the storyline, it’s shot
inglorious sun-drenched colour and looks like a
love letter to Americana from the thoroughly
English Arnold (this is her irst ilm set outside
the UK.)Arnold and regular cinematographer
Robbie Ryan have captured the rough beautyof
ruralUSA:for our crew ofpoor andaddled
travellers, it’s a landscape of truckstops, cheap
motels and trash-strewn roadsides, and signs of
wealth and suburban happiness are oddities.
Shia LaBeouf is perfectly cast as an irritating
douchebag, and as such, is utterlyconvincingin
therole. Arnold scoutedmost of the cast from
drunken American spring-breakers, including
Sasha Lane,and so at times it feels less like
iction and more like a documentary about the
hazy dregs of American millennials: watching
them boozingand brawlingwith no ambition
and no hope for the future is an eye-opening
insight into the distance between the haves and
thehave-notsin modern America.Foraroad
movie, it has no real sense of where it’s heading,
andwouldhavebeneittedfrommoreruthless
editing,butAmerican Honeyis an engrossing
ride all the same.
EXTRASTBC.TIM KEENRiley Keough, Shia LaBeouf and
the crew of subscription
slingers take a smoke break.KEEPING UP WITH THE JONESES
★★★★★
FROMNOW/ RATEDMA SOUND PREMISE — a boring suburban
couple (Zach Galifianakis and Isla Fisher)
tries to figure out if the new couple next
door (Jon Hamm and Gal Gadot) are
dangerous killers or not; none the worse
for being cribbed from Joe Dante’s The
’Burbs — ends up missing the mark on a
few fronts. Zach Galifianakis is hamstrung
from having to play the straight man,
instead of giving his talent for lunacy free
rein; the mystery is answered too soon,
which sucks the tension out of the
storyline; many of the jokes aren’t funny
enough (although Patton Oswalt is worth
a cackle as always), and the action
sequences are more sitcom standard than
Hollywood. On the other hand, you get to
see Gal Gadot in her undies, and that
makes up for a lot.
EXTRAS TBC. RICH YEAGERTHE FAMILY FANG
★★★★★
FROM FEBRUARY 27 / RATED MJASON BATEMAN DIRECTS this bittersweet
mystery that is less wilfully quirky than the
set-up suggests. The Family Fang are
performance artists Caleb and Camille, who
once achieved minor celebrity from
incorporating their young kids into their
quirky art “happenings”. Now the kids are
all grown up — Jason Bateman is the sad
sack Baxter, Nicole Kidman is the livewire
Annie — and Caleb and Camille, now washed
up without their child muses, are missing.
The police suspect foul play; Annie and
Baxter suspect yet another deranged
performance piece. Christopher Walken is
superb as trickster tyrant Caleb, part
goofball, part bully; Nicole Kidman is on top
form as actress/addict Annie. An often very
funny, occasionally heart-bruising, look at
how selfish parental love can be, and the
damage that can cause.
EXTRAS None. MICHAEL BROOKER