It's too long, but that's my biggest complaint. This felt very much like a companion piece to Andrea Arnold's Fish Tank to me. It's a great coming-of-age story melded with a jukebox musical of sorts, and every scene has an authentic energy to it that you don't typically see in movies these days. It's a highly enjoyable movie that also shines on issues of poverty in America in quietly devastating ways (the scene where the lead of the film Star encounters a family cleared riddled with drug addiction is fantastic). It has a pulsating soundtrack that registers in almost every frame. And the performances are all fantastic - newcomer Sasha Lane delivers a breakout lead performance and Shia LaBeouf does some career best work here. Also highly enjoyed Riley Keough's performance as the sassy leader of the gang of misfits. I don't think this is going to be an indie with a lot of crossover appeal but if you're a fan of Arnold's past movies and have the patience to let it sit with you it's impossible not to be caught up in the world these characters inhabit. A-

You wouldn't see Blue is the Warmest Color because it's too long but had no problem seeing this . I think it looks alright. I'd probably see it if it opens here. Not a fan of LaBeouf though at all.

There's no correlation between the two. Plus I loved Fish Tank.

I am literally so excited to see this movie.

A teenage girl who has known only abuse and poverty, Star (Sasha Lane) agrees to join a hard-living band of traveling magazine salesmen. As she travels the Midwest and the South, she falls in love with a volatile member of the crew (Shia LaBeouf) and turbulently, deliriously comes of age. American Honey is another fine film by British writer and director Andrea Arnold and her first to be set in the United States. The enormity of her ambition is clear: to create an authentic, dangerous, and sensational youth-in-crisis and soul-of-the-nation drama in the spiritual vein of, say, Rebel Without a Cause or Easy Rider, but newly infused with hip-hop beats and 21st-century economic anxiety. Arnold mostly achieves this goal. Her hand-held images, presented in the Academy-ratio (4:3), are vibrant and wild, capturing both vast landscapes and incredibly intimate details. And the verisimilitude is buoyed considerably by a cast of mostly nonprofessional actors, the notable exceptions being veteran character actor Will Patton, Mad Max: Fury Road co-star Riley Keough, and, of course, LaBeouf, whose hard-edged, virile performance is a powerful reminder of his substantial acting ability after a period heavy on viral videos and performance-art stunts. The lead, Sasha Lane, is an auspicious discovery (Arnold spotted her by chance at a springtime party in Florida); the film rests entirely on her shoulders, and she delivers a nuanced and soulful turn entirely devoid of artifice. I hope she is subsequently given more roles than Katie Jarvis, the similarly captivating and fiery Dagenham local Arnold cast opposite Michael Fassbender in her masterpiece Fish Tank. If I have a complaint of note with American Honey, it is its length; it runs nearly three hours, and my admiration for the epic scope and free-floating form is tempered a tad by a sense of self-indulgence at play. Certain scenes (particularly ones of singing and juvenile prattle in the crew's van) are interminable, and the film could be tightened and focused to its benefit.

A-

There is a good movie buried somewhere in American Honey, but it takes a good editor to find it because right now it is buried underneath heaps and heaps of self-indulgence.

American Honey is vivid and intimate, a portrait of a new tribalism emerging from the decaying corpus of modern civilization. It very much made me think of Daniel Quinn's series of philosophical Ishmael novels, especially 'Beyond Civilization.' The film feels fresh and on the verge of something new that neither the viewer nor the characters themselves can fully anticipate. Grounded by authentic performances, free floating poetic imagery and an expressive soundtrack, the film pulses with sadness, sexuality, and vivacious life on the cusp of a broken culture.

I concede that the film would benefit from additional editing to trim off maybe 15 minutes. One notable example: when Star is leaving her half-siblings with their mother, we're subjected to an additional minute of line-dancing shots after the emotional climax of the scene. And some of the travel scenes in the van begin to feel overindulgent. And the movie uses one song two times, to very similar effect, eliciting a sense of deja-vu.

BUT what the film offers is more than enough to overlook the excessive length, and for the most part I was completely captivated by the creative lives of this tribe of youth. The film is bold and much more meaningful than most movies. Close to my favorite of the year so far, American Honey lingers in mind...

A-

Shia LaBeouf is so gross. Ew.

This is a gorgeously shot film. Didn't completely love it but it's certainly memorable.

I loved this even more on Blu-ray. In a home setting, every element I loved (the acting and characters, the photography, the realism, the sense of live-wire/upside-down unpredictability) rose even further to the fore, and my one modest complaint (potential indulgence in regard to length) fell away. It is now very much solidified as one of my favorite films of 2016. Andrea Arnold is so, so talented.

I liked it, but you really don't give a shit about any of the characters besides the girl and Shia LaBeouf who actually do have good chemistry. Also, I don't mind some of the songs they chose for the soundtrack, but even that shit felt grating/obnoxious after a while, especially the over use of Juicy J.

**1/2 / ***** (C-)

The best thing about the movie is that you don't feel the length. The worst thing is that it has no idea what it wants to be. A criticism of current socio-economic situation? A coming out of age story? A story about outcasts? It's all over the place and there's not one strong captivating story to catch onto throughout the movie. It hardly helps that almost every single character is unlikeable (or even worse so fucking bland).

I wasn't sure if the lead actress has some kind of learning disability or she just played her character like that. But it was really distracting. The less said about the love story the better. I just didn't care about them at all.

Riley Keough stole the show in those couple scenes she had. Bitchy Krystal was the sole standout among what's pretty much a clichéd group of characters.

After having seen this and Red Road, Andrea Arnold is seriously one of the most overrrated directors currently IMHO. Can we get some get some good women directors finally?