Oh man i loved this. I actually was only looking forward to this because it was directed by Andrea Arnold and i have confidence in her thanks to Fish Tank and especially Red Road. Didn't think it looked particularly good from the trailer and i especially didn't think it would be something i'd love, but i did. My new number one of the year. I could see alot of people hating or feeling indifferent to this because it is certainly flawed but i completely connected with it. There's spoilers in this so don't read further if you haven't seen it yet.
It had such a great realistic feel to it but at the same time it was i dunno how to put it pretty nasty/trashy at times, some scenes were genuinely tough to sit through and all the more so because it was so well directed. As an example: she has a weird living situation at the start that isn't made entirely clear she takes care of two young kids but it doesn't say if they are related to her or what (they don't look like her and we later find out Stars mum is dead while these kids mum is alive so i'm going to guess she isn't), their father is a slimy drunk who forces her to dance with him while he gropes her. This 30 second scene where all you see is him grabbing her backside was honestly more disturbing to me than scenes that were ten times worse in content, it was a combination of; the implication that this was a regular occurence from Stars apprehensiveness around him even though he is in the film for a minute or two at the most, Stars genuine terror expressed through this deep natural feeling sobbing and how close you feel to it; it feels almost like you are in the middle of it. This set the rest of the film up perfectly; while watching the kids she comes across Jake who is played by Shia LaBeouf (for the record one thing i wasn't crazy about was her instant attraction to him, it just felt like an odd excuse to get her to meet him, although they did have good chemistry) after a few interactions he offers her a job selling magazines across America. The amazing thing is that in 15 minutes they completely had me rooting for her to get away from this terrible life, this was an escape that i wanted her to take. And this was without even attempting to get me to like Star; her personality had barely been introduced at all so i was nothing more than indifferent to her, it was all from a stark picture that was painted in a few short scenes of such a sh!tty existence that i would've been rooting for my worst enemy to get out of it. Fantastic writing/direction.
The thing is the story completely meanders without saying anything or advancing the plot at all alot of the time. There's so many pointless party scenes, or scenes of them trying to sell magazines, meeting random people, etc, that add zero character development or anything of any importance. At times the characters just kind of exist, it works for me though. The group who she works with for the most part aren't likable people, they are a pretty diverse group of people but as a group they all seem to act the same. All they seem to do is smoke, drink, take drugs and fight. There really isn't much more than that about any of them (with the exception of Star, Jake and maybe one or two others) i mean there is a guy who is only memorable because he regularly takes his dick out, there doesn't need to be anything more to them though, they are essentially a tool to set the atmosphere of the film and through their dumb partying they achieve this. I don't think all of the partying is pointless though, the more involved Star starts to get involved in this seems to directly correlate with her growing as a character whether for better or worse. Some of the music wasn't for me but i really couldn't imagine this film with any other type of soundtrack.
As the film progresses and Star starts to get more and more independent she really puts you through the ringer. So many moments i was just thinking what the hell are you doing, it really put me through a range of conflicting emotions. The three big moments are first she runs away from Jake and takes a ride with these three a-hole cowboy guys. They seem quite eager to get her to come along with them taking her to one of their houses, their intentions aren't entirely made clear because Jake eventually appears, all they do up to that point is kind of mess with her but it still is a situation she should be in. Next i think was supposed to be a subversion of the typical hitchhike with a trucker = death trope, it ends up turning into a pretty powerful scene, she bonds with him he turns out to be a nice family man despite his skeevy appearance; they have a brief nice moment together regardless though you can't help but feel uneasy when she enters his truck. The other one is one of the nastiest scenes i've ever scene, and it's the same as the earlier groping scene i've seen much worse but the way this was directed/written it makes my skin crawl more than just about anything. She gets a ride with three wealthy oil workers and while attempting to sell them magazines one of them propositions her with 500 dollars for a "date", she tells him to up it to a thousand and she'll do it. Anyway during the "date" she doesn't have sex with him, she jerks him off and strips but that's it, again the guy looked pretty skeevy in addition to this he was an ******* and a bit aggressive telling her to shut her mouth while she is jerking me off, i never had the feeling that he was actually going to harm her. Still though a combination of the dark lighting, her apprehensivness; trying to change the subject, acting almost childlike naive during it, as well as just what this situation is the fact that she has went so far for this/hit rock bottom. Such an unnerving scene but the perfect example of the wonderful direction and writing in my opinion.
Sasha Lane was excellent, performance of the year for me. Her character wasn't very likable but there was no reason for her to be, she had a terrible life and she clearly had a selfish, mistrusting and bad side. I'm so glad Andrea didn't try to sugercoat her character because the straightforward this is how she is and that's that way this was preseneted made her feel like a real person. At times she was mean, at times dumb, obnoxious, reckless, etc. Then at times she kind of let her gaurd down, showing a slightly more likable, less cynical side. I do think she genuinely develops throughout though, initially there is so much genuine contempt in her i think this is best shown in the first place she tries to sell magazines with Jake, he is doing an amazing job lying his ass off and seems to have the woman on the hook but she is scowling clearly disgusted and envious of this rich woman, her house and her spoiled daughter, and she doesn't attempt to mask this acting incredibly bitchy and at the slightest provocation she blows up ruining the sale. By the end of the film i think she has lost most of this after finding herself for better or worse through this experience. And again i think that's reality, she hasn't magically transformed into this jovial, lovable person in the brief time we've been watching her; growth is a neverending process and like anyone else she takes both bad (her selfishness, recklessness) and good (less angry, more focused and happy) away from her experiences. Shia LaBeouf seems to be a very hated actor, i'm sure there's plenty of reason for this but i'm not really aware of it because i haven't seen him in much. He was very good here, it was Sasha's show but he played the only other major role as well as i could've asked.
Great film. I can see this film being pretty polarazing because truth be told there is plenty of reason to hate it but personally i loved it. The only drawback was the length. It wasn't a big problem for me i mean the first time i paused the film to answer the film it was nearly two hours in and i didn't think it had been anywhere near that long, still i do think the film could've been done in 2 hours.
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