Pip: Ghost Dog is on the air, and today we're heading somewhere between the open road and the silver screen — which, if you squint, might be the same place.
Mara: Benn Bell takes us there with a look at Andrea Arnold's film American Honey — a road movie, a coming-of-age story, and a portrait of a subculture that turns out to be less foreign than it first appears.
Pip: Less foreign to at least one reviewer, it turns out. Let's get into it.
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American Honey and the Road That Raises You
Mara: The question at the center of this post is a personal one: what does it mean to come of age on the margins, in motion, in a world your parents would rather you avoided?
Pip: The film lands close to home — literally. The post opens with a direct admission: "When I was 16 I was a member of a traveling magazine crew too. It was my first actual paying job that I ever had where I got a weekly paycheck. My teachers and my parents hated it."
Mara: So the review is also a reckoning. That personal parallel is what gives the whole piece its weight — it's not just criticism, it's recognition.
Pip: And that recognition shapes how the film gets read. The director, British filmmaker Andrea Arnold, shoots rural America — Muskogee, Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, Missouri, Iowa, North Dakota — through a foreign lens, and the post finds that instructive rather than distancing.
Mara: The comparison is to Antonioni and Wim Wenders. Directors who see America slightly sideways, and in that gap reveal something locals might miss.
Pip: Arnold also makes a formal choice that takes some warming up to — a nearly square 4:3 aspect ratio, and a runtime of two hours and forty-three minutes.
Mara: On the runtime, the post is candid: "I didn't notice it much until the movie was over and I went outside and noticed that the weather had changed and the light was decidedly different." That's a film doing its job.
Pip: The cast is worth noting too. Lead actor Sasha Lane was discovered on a beach in Panama City on spring break — this is her first role. Shia LaBeouf plays the salesman trying to show her the ropes. Riley Keough, Elvis Presley's granddaughter, plays the crew leader.
Mara: The post describes the storytelling as cinema verite — no clean three-act structure, more slice of life. And it closes with a genuine endorsement: great movie, highly recommend.
Pip: The road trip as education. Turns out that theme doesn't expire.
Mara: Coming of age on the road, America seen through an outsider's eye — these aren't small subjects.
Pip: And apparently they look different depending on whether you're watching from the audience or from memory. More from Ghost Dog next time.
