Columns

I live in the outskirts of Sebastopol, so the so-called “mag crews” don’t appear at my front door. But when we lived in Hermosa Beach, they were a several-times-a-week fixture. Those hucksters were always young, always vulnerable, and always poised for the “kill” of getting you to sign up for unneeded magazines. Writer/director Andrea Arnold has fleshed out a New York Times article by Ian Urbana into American Honey, the 162-minute-long, sex, drugs and hip-hop filled, cross-country odyssey taken by Star (Sasha Lane), a luckless teen desperate to escape her groping father and the 24-hours-a-day responsibility of caring for her younger siblings. Star finds her means of escape in a Walmart by flirting with Jake (Shia LeBoeuf) the scruffy-looking oldest member of a group of teens who are escorted out by store security. “If you want a job,” Jake tells Star, “be at the Motel 6 tomorrow morning.”