Written and directed by Oscar winner Andrea Arnold, ‘American Honey’ lays bare the seedy underbelly of Middle America.
A confronting, gritty and brutal tale softened by fleeting moments of cinematographic beauty, the film is a juxtaposition of desolation and hope.
Winner of the Jury Prize at the 2016 Cannes Film Festival, the film follows the journey of Star, played by Hollywood newcomer Sasha Lane, who joins a travelling magazine crew of misfits led by a take-no-prisoners matriarch, Krystal (Riley Keough). Star’s chance encounter with the crew, and immediate attraction to the group’s head salesman, Jake (Shia LaBeouf), takes the audience on a voyeuristic, dread-filled journey of reckless misadventure, forbidden love and redemption.
How Sasha came to be cast in ‘American Honey’ will revive every wannabe actress’s dream of being discovered. Using a mixture of auditions and street casting to source her talent, Andrea spotted Sasha enjoying spring break on a Miami beach. As it turns out, Sasha had been waiting for that very moment.
“Yeah, I had a feeling that something was going to happen. I would tell my dad, and he would get angry at my tattoos and the way that I was going about my life, but I would just tell him, ‘I’m going to be okay. I promise being who I am is how I’m going to make it, so just let me kind of do that.’”
Sasha, who has been described as the breakout star of the Cannes Film Festival, experienced an organic initiation into the world of movie making, with Andrea complementing the script with impromptu footage. “A lot of the van scenes were more in-the-moment type of situations so a lot of that was more improv,” Sasha explains.
Demonstrating the power of Andrea’s documentary-style approach is the potency of a quiet look exchanged on the road between Sasha and Veronica Ezell who plays QT. “That truly was just a captured moment pretty much, it was really special,” Sasha says. “I’m happy it felt that way because it was very much real. We were all there for a reason and we all worked together so much, that you form that bond.”
With the majority of the cast novices, Shia LaBeouf and TV and movie veteran Will Patton were the odd ones out on set, however there were no egos on display.
“It was like there was no separation,” Sasha says. “There was never a moment of; 'you’re professional, I’m not professional, what should I do', blah blah blah. There was a lot of respect. This is how you’re going about it? This is why you’re here? Cool. Go with it.”
This relaxed approach extended to Andrea’s disclosure of character development. Astoundingly, Sasha never read the script. Instead, she was drip-fed audition sides the day before or the day of filming, so can empathise with feelings of trepidation surrounding Star’s fate.
“Certain things, even seeing it I would be like [grimace]. I know Andrea changed some things as we progressed and stuff, and so to know the way that it ended… It feels really good to know like, yeah, Sasha, you’re not a victim to this. The strength that you have and the strength that Star has. She is very strong, she’s very resilient and she is, you know, taking control and there is this light… It didn’t lead to as bad as things could have been.”
The abject poverty, child neglect and exploitation of the downtrodden depicted in ‘American Honey’ has the potential to leave audiences squirming in their seat more than once, however the power and beauty found in the fragile and the weak will have them lifting their faces to the light; much like Andrea’s imagery of a moth inching gently up a moonlit curtain.
