Director and co-screenwriter Ethan Coen and co-screenwriter Tricia Cooke return with their second entry in their self-proclaimed “lesbian B-movie trilogy,” Honey Don’t! Margaret Qualley returned as the lead actress again, playing private investigator Honey O’Donahue. Alongside Qualley, Aubrey Plaza plays a Bakersfield, California police officer, MG Falcone, while Chris Evans dons the holy suit as cult leader, Reverend Drew Devlin. With a couple more big names as cameos, Coen and Cooke were on to something with this one.
Honey Don’t! is an American neo-noir detective dark comedy that takes place in Bakersfield, California. Honey investigates ties between a woman’s death and a religious cult fronting as a small complex church. While the story had some turns, there were not enough twists to keep my interest in this case.
One of the most intriguing storylines followed one of Reverend Drew’s henchman, Hector, who took care of his grandmother, out in a desert home. He subverted expectations, seeming like a scrawny boy but could actually hold his own in a fight. Right when I was gripping my seat arms, he was killed off in a lame way. Jacnier killed the role as Hector and it was a shame he was written this way.
The critical part of this film’s downfall is how Coen and Cooke wrote fascinating characters, but the story was flat. The casting for everyone’s characters worked but they were not given enough time to develop. Every queer character is given thorough backstories, which felt relatable and realistic. Adding in the Bakersfield/small-town layer to the two lead lesbian women’s backstory had a lot to say in the movie’s overarching commentary. But again, there needed to be more time for a successful turn. In most cases, I always discuss how a tighter movie around the hour and a half mark is good enough to show off a great feature film story. But in this situation, I wanted to see more of these side characters.
The only side characters I felt were almost unnecessary were Billy Eichner and Charlie Day’s roles. Eichner’s character felt shoehorned in as a small side story that awkwardly detracted from the main story. Thank god for Eichner’s great comedic chops! By the third act, everything was gift wrapped too nicely. Additionally, the ending was as predictable as guessing the answer to the equation: what does 1 + 1 equal? Honey Don’t!’s formulaic approach was to the film’s detriment, and could have spent more time coming up with a fully fleshed out criminal case.
Honey Don’t! has a lot to say about Bakersfield, and what it feels like growing up as a queer woman in a small-town trailer park. Charlie Day’s private detective role, Marty Metakawich, showed how oblivious locals understand what it means to be gay—as he continued to ask Honey on a date. While Coen and Cooke drove Day’s character on a one-track mind, it beat the joke in the ground. The saving grace was that Day’s scenes were relatively short.
Coming off of Drive-Away Dolls, I was expecting this one to be a little crazier and it was to a certain extent. The driving force of the movie explores sex in two ways. One of the most riveting scenes was between Honey and Reverend Drew because they both crave sexual partners but have a job to do—despite being on opposite sides of the law. Their views on sex are also diametrically opposed, offering another layer of depth to Honey Don’t!’s moral dilemma. Through Reverend Drew’s attempts to charm Honey like every other woman he has seduced in his parish, he quickly learns that Honey is a lesbian woman.
“Those looking for a Coen brothers movie will find their techniques in Honey Don’t! with Ethan’s influences…”
Those looking for a Coen brothers movie will find their techniques in Honey Don’t! with Ethan’s influences, but that is not saying much. The opening style screamed Coen brothers, the flawed characters already mentioned, the use of an iconic car (like in Fargo and Drive-Away Dolls), and themes of corruption and lack of character agency. To sum up these themes in their movies is reductive, but this film maintained those familiar feelings. However, the execution was rocky.
Another one of Honey Don’t!’s rocky executions is its music and score. Carter Burwell’s recent works included Drive-Away Dolls and The Banshees of Inisherin, which I argue both of those movies were not known for their standout scores. More notably is Burwell’s work on the series The Morning Show. Honey Don’t! trends toward Burwell’s former works because the score was not memorable; the music was a nice touch—having Jack Antonoff produce some tracks for Qualley to perform for the soundtrack.
Honey Don’t had the opportunity to provide some jazzy vibes to back the film’s neo-noir vibes. Strangely, Jonny Greenwood’s composing on Pablo Larraín’s Spencer had more detective/mystery notes than whatever Burwell baked into Honey Don’t!. So many mystery/murder-mystery movies have some suspenseful or jazz/blues feelings incorporated into the score to match the visual pacing.
By the time Honey Don’t!’s credits rolled, I felt a certain blah and bitter taste left in my mouth. On one hand, the silly quips and underlying themes had something to say. I would not call this a bad movie, more so, a simple one. Honey Don’t! took a lot of inspiration from many great films, such as having Honey as badass and fierce as Kill Bill’s The Bride meets Benoit Blanc from the Knives Out films. This movie’s mystery genre elements found me investigating where the mystery genre strengths were within this fundamentally good crime story.
