Margaret Qualley stars as Honey O’Donahue in author/director Ethan Coen’s ‘Honey Do not!’, a Focus Options launch. Credit score: Karen Kuehn / © 2025 Focus Options LLC.
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.
“She solely has two wishes, and one among them is justice.”
Launch Date: Aug 22, 2025
Run Time: 1 hr 29 min
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Preliminary Ideas
Margaret Qualley stars as Honey O’Donahue in author/director Ethan Coen’s ‘Honey Do not!’, a Focus Options launch. Credit score: Karen Kuehn / © 2025 Focus Options LLC.
The second chapter in a proposed lesbian B-movie trilogy dreamed up by director/author Ethan Coen and his spouse, author/editor Tricia Cooke, ‘Honey Don’t!’ follows up the pair’s first installment, 2024’s ‘Drive-Away Dolls.’ However whereas that was a caper/buddy highway comedy that benefited (so far as it went) from the love between Margaret Qualley and Geraldine Viswanathan, ‘Honey Don’t!’ is a takeoff on the noir style that’s saved solely by one other nice efficiency from Qualley and the handful of spicy intercourse scenes she shares with Aubrey Plaza.
The remainder of ‘Honey Don’t!’ — named after a Carl Perkins music — is much more insubstantial that ‘Drive-Away Dolls’ ended up being, with a formless script that performs like a tough draft and an overabundance of plot strands and characters that drift out and in of the image with out something significant to tie them collectively. It’s barely a film, making us want that Ethan and his brother Joel would reunite.
Story and Route
(L to R) Author Tricia Cooke, actor Margaret Qualley and author/director Ethan Coen on the set of their movie ‘Honey Do not!’, a Focus Options launch. Credit score: Karen Kuehn / © 2025 Focus Options LLC.
Story and course: two issues that ‘Honey Don’t!’ is badly in want of. Qualley performs Honey O’Donahue, a tricky, queer non-public detective who lives and works within the arid city of Bakersfield, California, the place she stays near her sister (Kristen Connolly) – who’s on the sting of poverty together with her six youngsters – and does her greatest to guard and assist her.
Though native cop Marty (Charlie Day) – who refuses to simply accept that the glamorous Honey is a lesbian – insists that the automobile accident dying of a possible consumer is an open-and-shut case, Honey has her suspicions. These lead her to an area church known as the 4-Method Temple and its pastor, the sleazy Drew Devlin (Chris Evans), who’s smuggling medication when not luring susceptible younger ladies into his mattress and fetish gear. The investigation turns private when Honey’s circle of relatives is dragged in, dredging up ghosts from her previous at the same time as she begins a torrid affair with an proof room officer, MG Falcone (Aubrey Plaza).
Charlie Day stars as Marty Metakawitch in author/director Ethan Coen’s ‘Honey Do not!’, a Focus Options launch. Credit score: Courtesy of Focus Options / © 2025 Focus Options LLC
As with many noirs, neo or in any other case, the story is commonly fragmentary. However there’s nothing else past Qualley’s central efficiency to maintain our curiosity. A lot of the different solid members – besides maybe for Plaza and Day – make little to no impression, lots of the jokes don’t land, and scenes meander about with little rigidity or vitality. The film seems like Coen and Cooke slapped it collectively on the fly, and the drab, parched setting saps no matter vitality the story might possess.
There’s one thing in right here about feminine empowerment and the necessity to cease submitting to patriarchal figures, however it’s dealt with so limply that any thematic issues don’t have any weight. And the story’s dénouement is so abrupt and baffling that one is left questioning what the hell occurred. One main subplot finally ends up going completely nowhere in any respect – a sign of simply how slipshod and lazy the whole movie appears.
Solid and Performances
(L to R( Aubrey Plaza and Margaret Qualley star in author/director Ethan Coen’s ‘Honey Do not!’, a Focus Options launch. Credit score: Karen Kuehn / © 2025 Focus Options LLC.
Margaret Qualley is the only purpose to stay round in ‘Honey Don’t!’ Her Honey is hard, frank, and enjoyable even when the remainder of the film round her is dismal, and she or he shines in Honey’s procession of brightly-colored flowered clothes. Her line readings are intentionally staccato and flat within the noir custom, and there’s simply sufficient revealed about her to be irritating, as a result of Honey is a terrific character searching for a greater film.
Aubrey Plaza and Qualley actually sizzle of their intercourse scenes, however Plaza’s Falcone is an excessive amount of of a cypher and is let down by the script towards the tip. Chris Evans is just miscast: the previous (and future?) Captain America is just too arch right here and a lot better served by motion pictures like ‘Materialists.’ Charlie Day earns some chuckles because the lunkheaded however sweet-natured Marty, and Gabby Beans deserves extra to do as Honey’s assistant Spider, however everybody else fades into the blazing Bakersfield solar.
Remaining Ideas
Chris Evans stars as Drew Devlin in author/director Ethan Coen’s ‘Honey Do not!’, a Focus Options launch. Credit score: Karen Kuehn / © 2025 Focu Options LLC.
There’s the trace of a much more fascinating film right here, and making the basic noir detective determine right into a lesbian may add a contemporary new spin to the style. However ‘Honey Don’t!’ simply doesn’t work.
Like ‘Drive-Away Dolls,’ this has the quirks, violence, and informal comedy of a Coen brothers film, however even much less of no matter magical focus the mixture of Joel and Ethan brings to their greatest movies. This feels extra like self-indulgence, cheapening even what’s presupposed to be a B-movie.
‘Honey Do not!’ receives a rating of 30 out of 100.
What’s the plot of ‘Honey Don’t!’?
In Bakersfield, California, feminine non-public detective Honey O’Donahue (Margaret Qualley) investigates a lady’s dying and tangles with the top of a mysterious church.
Who’s within the solid 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
Author/director Ethan Coen’s ‘Honey Do not!’, a Focus Options launch opens in theaters on August 22, 2025. Credit score: Courtesy of Focus Options / © 2025 Focus Options LLC
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