The story follows her search for freedom, belonging, and youthful adventure amid partying, hustles, and fleeting romances across the Midwest. Director Andrea Arnold street-cast mostly non-actors after scouting real locations and reading a New York Times piece on mag crews, explicitly aiming for authentic faces and surrogate-family dynamics rather than any messaging.

The organic casting of new, non-established characters including the mixed-race lead Star serves realism in transient youth crews without any forced identity focus or agenda. Core themes of personal escape, hedonism, and surrogate family are drawn from classic coming-of-age and road-movie traditions without activist framing or lectures. Director interviews emphasize authentic portrayal of vulnerable American youth over any social justice intent or identity politics, resulting in a film that prioritizes lived experience and character-driven storytelling over progressive messaging. This approach keeps the narrative grounded in universal human struggles rather than ideological points, earning the low woke score through its deliberate avoidance of such elements.