Movie Review
Oddball noir Honey Don’t features a fearless lead turn by Margaret Qualley
Margaret Qualley in Honey Don't.
For reasons known only to him, writer/director Ethan Coen has made the late-in-life pivot from his longtime partnership with his brother, Joel, to making quirky movies about lesbians with his queer wife, Tricia Cooke. They started with Drive-Away Dolls in 2024, and are now back with a completely different type of story in Honey Don’t.
Their muse appears to be Margaret Qualley, who starred in the previous film and here leads the way as Honey O’Donahue, a private detective who’s always on the hunt for her next case and her next lover. A fatal car accident is the impetus for the plot, as Honey navigates the unwanted advances of police detective Marty Metakawitch (Charlie Day), the cult-like church led by Reverend Drew Devlin (Chris Evans), and other obstacles.
Her professional life starts to collide with her personal one when her niece Corrine (Talia Ryder) mysteriously goes missing. Honey also starts up a fling with police officer MG Falcone (Aubrey Plaza) in order to get better information on her cases and to satisfy her yearnings. Her dedication to her job and her sexual proclivities continue to intertwine throughout the film.
Coen and Cooke, who co-wrote the film, try to make a modern film noir, having Honey emulate a classic private detective in her speech and actions. She often shows little emotion even in scenarios that would call for it, and her intelligence is always a step above other characters. Even as the story flounders, Honey remains interesting in the way she reacts to those who try to undermine her or question her abilities.
Once again, seen through a certain lens, the story could fit in well with the Coen Brothers filmography, as virtually every character has oddball tendencies that make them either funny or intriguing. But the plot is meandering, resulting in only tenuous connections that start to fray under the slightest examination. Honey seems to be good at her job, but Coen and Cooke struggle to demonstrate exactly why she’s able to uncover various clues.
It’s difficult to know what to make of the sexual aspect of the film. There is an implied explicitness to many of those scenes (and there are a lot for a 90-minute film) that goes beyond what is typical of most movies these days. At the same time, it’s unclear why some of them were included. Reverend Drew is shown almost exclusively in the middle of having sex with different women, a choice that demonstrates his controlling, egomaniacal personality, but the scenes with Honey and MG serve little purpose other than to titillate.
Qualley is easily the best part of the film, giving a controlled performance that lets the audience buy into the character despite the story flaws. Plaza is typically understated in most of her scenes, perhaps a bit too much for this particular role. Both Evans and Day are allowed to go over the top with their characters, which works initially until it gets to be too much for both.
At this point, it seems unlikely that Joel and Ethan Coen will ever team up again, so anyone looking to get a fix will have to make do with movies like Honey Don’t. Even though it has somewhat of the same feel as their classic films, the extra elements that Coen and Cooke add to the mix fail to improve the final product.
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Honey Don't opens in theaters on August 22.
