CW: sexual harassment

I know these faces. These are not the faces from the magazines. These are not the faces from Hollywood (even the ones that actually were). These are faces I see everyday. They're Walmart parking lot faces. They're pickup trucks at gas station faces. They're faces you see in high school yearbooks and small town newspaper mugshots and sports moments, missing persons notices and crowd shots. They're faces at the mall. They are the cornfed cross-section of middle class white America, appropriating hiphop and music video fashion sense, uninhibited by the standards of adulthood, only vaguely aware of their own exploitation by the callous taskmasters who encourage them to then continue the chain of exploitation. They are the…

Upon re-watching American Honey, I came to the realization that it's my second favorite film of all-time -- just behind Mommy, the most personal narrative that I've ever experienced in the realm of cinema, and just ahead of Beasts of the Southern Wild, the film that I saw a few weeks following my father's death, and the piece of art that almost singlehandedly got me through the period of grief following his passing. My only complaint about American Honey is that its sprawling 163 minute runtime isn't three or so hours longer, clocking it at something like 330-360 minutes.

I never wanted it to end; I want to live inside this film. I almost wish that certified queen of cinema,…