Opening in theaters August 22 is ‘Honey Don’t!,’ directed by Ethan Coen and starring Margaret Qualley, Aubrey Plaza, Chris Evans, Charlie Day, Kristen Connolly, Billy Eichner, Gabby Beans, Lera Abova, and Talia Ryder.
8N2UcE2ejhzUMGhNUO2gg1Related Article: Margaret Qualley, Josh Brolin And Guy Pearce Joining Ridley Scott’s Sci-fi Dystopia ‘The Dog Stars’
Initial Thoughts
The second chapter in a proposed lesbian B-movie trilogy dreamed up by director/writer Ethan Coen and his wife, writer/editor Tricia Cooke, ‘Honey Don’t!’ follows up the pair’s first installment, 2024’s ‘Drive-Away Dolls.’ But while that was a caper/buddy road comedy that benefited (as far as it went) from the affection between Margaret Qualley and Geraldine Viswanathan, ‘Honey Don’t!’ is a takeoff on the noir genre that is saved only by another great performance from Qualley and the handful of spicy sex scenes she shares with Aubrey Plaza.
The rest of ‘Honey Don’t!’ — named after a Carl Perkins song — is even more insubstantial that ‘Drive-Away Dolls’ ended up being, with a formless script that plays like a rough draft and an overabundance of plot strands and characters that drift in and out of the picture without anything meaningful to tie them together. It’s barely a movie, making us wish that Ethan and his brother Joel would reunite.
Story and Direction
Story and direction: two things that ‘Honey Don’t!’ is badly in need of. Qualley plays Honey O’Donahue, a tough, queer private detective who lives and works in the arid town of Bakersfield, California, where she stays close to her sister (Kristen Connolly) – who is on the edge of poverty with her six kids – and does her best to protect and help her.
Although local cop Marty (Charlie Day) – who refuses to accept that the glamorous Honey is a lesbian – insists that the car accident death of a potential client is an open-and-shut case, Honey has her suspicions. Those lead her to a local church called the Four-Way Temple and its pastor, the sleazy Drew Devlin (Chris Evans), who is smuggling drugs when not luring vulnerable young women into his bed and fetish gear. The investigation turns personal when Honey’s own family is dragged in, dredging up ghosts from her past even as she begins a torrid affair with an evidence room officer, MG Falcone (Aubrey Plaza).
As with many noirs, neo or otherwise, the story is often fragmentary. But there’s nothing else beyond Qualley’s central performance to keep our interest. Most of the other cast members – except perhaps for Plaza and Day – make little to no impression, many of the jokes don’t land, and scenes meander about with little tension or vitality. The movie feels like Coen and Cooke slapped it together on the fly, and the drab, parched setting saps whatever energy the story may possess.
There’s something in here about female empowerment and the need to stop submitting to patriarchal figures, but it’s handled so limply that any thematic concerns have no weight. And the story’s dénouement is so abrupt and baffling that one is left wondering what the hell happened. One major subplot ends up going absolutely nowhere at all – an indication of just how slipshod and lazy the entire film seems.
Cast and Performances
Margaret Qualley is the sole reason to stick around in ‘Honey Don’t!’ Her Honey is tough, frank, and fun even if the rest of the movie around her is dismal, and she shines in Honey’s procession of brightly-colored flowered dresses. Her line readings are deliberately staccato and flat in the noir tradition, and there’s just enough revealed about her to be frustrating, because Honey is a terrific character looking for a better movie.
Aubrey Plaza and Qualley truly sizzle in their sex scenes, but Plaza’s Falcone is too much of a cypher and is let down by the script toward the end. Chris Evans is simply miscast: the former (and future?) Captain America is too arch here and much better served by movies like ‘Materialists.’ Charlie Day earns some chuckles as the lunkheaded but sweet-natured Marty, and Gabby Beans deserves more to do as Honey’s assistant Spider, but everyone else fades into the blazing Bakersfield sun.
Final Thoughts
There is the hint of a far more interesting movie here, and making the classic noir detective figure into a lesbian could add a fresh new spin to the genre. But ‘Honey Don’t!’ just does not work.
Like ‘Drive-Away Dolls,’ this has the quirks, violence, and casual comedy of a Coen brothers movie, but even less of whatever magical focus the combination of Joel and Ethan brings to their best films. This feels more like self-indulgence, cheapening even what’s supposed to be a B-movie.
‘Honey Don’t!’ receives a score of 30 out of 100.
urOrbjPEWhat is the plot of ‘Honey Don’t!’?
In Bakersfield, California, female private detective Honey O’Donahue (Margaret Qualley) investigates a woman’s death and tangles with the head of a mysterious church.
Who is in the cast of ‘Honey Don’t!’?
- Margaret Qualley as Honey O’Donahue
- Aubrey Plaza as MG Falcone
- Chris Evans as Reverend Drew Devlin
- Lera Abova as Cher
- Charlie Day as Marty Metakawitch
- Gabby Beans as Spider
- Talia Ryder as Corinne
- Kristen Connolly as Heidi O’Donahue
- Billy Eichner as Mr. Siegfried
- Jacnier as Hector
- Josh Pafchek as Shuggie
- Kale Browne as Honey’s Father
- Kara Petersen as Mia Novotny
List of Ethan Coen Movies:
- ‘Blood Simple‘ (1984)
- ‘Raising Arizona‘ (1987)
- ‘Miller’s Crossing‘ (1990)
- ‘Barton Fink‘ (1991)
- ‘The Hudsucker Proxy‘ (1994)
- ‘Fargo‘ (1996)
- ‘The Big Lebowski‘ (1998)
- ‘O Brother Where Art Thou‘ (2000)
- ‘The Man Who Wasn’t There‘ (2001)
- ‘Intolerable Cruelty‘ (2003)
- ‘The Ladykillers‘ (2004)
- ‘No Country for Old Men‘ (2007)
- ‘Burn After Reading‘ (2008)
- ‘A Serious Man‘ (2009)
- ‘True Grit‘ (2010)
- ‘Inside Llewyn Davis‘ (2013)
- ‘Hail, Caesar!‘ (2016)
- ‘The Ballad of Buster Scruggs‘ (2018)
- ‘Jerry Lee Lewis: Trouble in Mind‘ (2024)
- ‘Drive-Away Dolls’ (2024)
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