Sasha Lane and Shia LaBeouf in American Honey (A24)

Two young, beautiful, dangerous kids are speeding away in a fancy convertible they just stole. The boy turns on the radio, and the right music to help them celebrate stars blasting. The girl holds the bricks of money they just stolen, more money than she’s probably seen before. She stands up and howls at the country passing her by, and then she screams one of the most unnatural, on-the-nose lines in recent memory: “I feel like America right now!”

Like her teenage protagonist, rising British director Andrea Arnold is making her first onscreen journey through the States. American Honey is in line with her breakthrough Fish Tank, a very good coming-of-age story about a 15-year-old falling for her mother’s latest fling. Like in that film, the lead actor, a nonprofessional dynamo, makes her screen debut portraying a lower-class girl. Unlike Fish Tank, Sasha Lane’s Star spends most of the film free from any home or responsibility. At the beginning, we find her tied down playing mom to her younger siblings. From the first sight she sees the ragtag crew of 15 rowdy teenagers partying, led by Shia LaBeouf’s Jake, in a supermarket, dancing to Rihanna’s “We Found Love,” she’s halfway out the door.

The team travels from town to town selling magazine subscriptions for Krystal, played by Riley Keough, who calls all of the shots, but the teens mostly selling themselves as sympathy cases that need any handout they can get. They travel from one small town or suburb through the Midwest, staying in cheap hotels, room and board provided by Krystal, who collects all of the commissions.

The kids are played by mostly nonprofessional actors, who feel authentic on screen the entire time. Among them is Arielle Holmes, who starred in the excellent autobiographical addiction drama Heaven Knows What, proving that her off-kilter and loopy presence in that film was no fluke. Arnold is contagiously empathetic towards the teenagers, whose crusty appearance usually keeps them ignored by mainstream cinema and society at large.

However, Arnold seems almost too enamored with her subjects, and the film gets bogged down in her romanticism. The film runs a gargantuan and unnecessary two hours and 43 minutes, and little ground is covered in that length (metaphorically, the characters are constantly traveling). Most of the running time feels like scenes of the crew singing to the radio. This doesn’t just happen in a cathartic moment of triumph or two. It occurs a handful of times throughout, stretching songs to their near entirety.

Too much of the time is devoted to a half-hearted love triangle between Lane, LaBeouf, and Keough. All three performers command your attention with their charisma and sensuality, but ultimately not enough changes to become really invested in their characters’ plight. When the story reaches its conclusion, it feels almost arbitrary. There’s a hint of agency gained but not nearly enough to sustain the journey.