In an period the place tv cowboys are outfitted extra regularly with Succession-like empires than pairs of six weapons, dusty neo-noirs really feel positively anachronistic on the large display screen in 2025. However Ethan Coen — a filmmaker with a big pedigree within the style since his 1984 debut together with his brother Joel, Blood Easy — makes a noble try and replace its iconography in Honey Don’t, the second of three deliberate “lesbian B-movies” after the equally scrappy (if reasonably extra profitable) 2022 crime comedy movie Drive-Away Dolls.
Like its predecessor, the movie was co-scripted by Coen and his real-life associate/longtime collaborator Tricia Cooke. It stars Margaret Qualley, additional easing into stardom right here because the movie’s unflappable namesake. But even a joyfully queer reimagining of the style’s classically hard-boiled protagonists fails to inject sufficient new power to take care of constant intrigue, prompting viewers to hunt a decision to the central thriller properly earlier than its comparatively brief 89-minute operating time elapses.
Qualley (The Substance) performs Honey O’Donaghue, a non-public investigator whose newest shopper dies in a automobile accident – the day earlier than they’re formally supposed to fulfill. Honey is intrigued by the coincidence, regardless of the indifference of native regulation enforcement. She rapidly discovers a connection between her shopper and a neighborhood church whose priest, Drew Devlin (Chris Evans), appears to be curating a flock of supporters to satiate his bodily wants in change for assembly their non secular ones. Within the meantime, she develops an unexpectedly sturdy reference to police officer MG Falcone (Aubrey Plaza) — one mockingly predicated on their mutual disinterest in emotional intimacy.
Followers Of The Coens’ Comedian Misanthropy Will Discover A lot To Get pleasure from Right here
As in lots of the Coens’ earlier movies, Ethan and Cooke’s portrait of small-town citizenry is comically unflattering. In Honey Don’t, it is equally enjoyable to observe. Each Evans and Charlie Day, the latter enjoying Bakersfield’s incurious murder detective, play pleasant buffoons, extra persistent — and innocent — of their romantic pursuit of Honey than succesful of their roles inside the city. In the meantime, not in contrast to Frances McDormand’s Marge Gunderson in Fargo, Honey principally manages to outwit every new individual she encounters simply by being level-headed.
But the violence leans extra cruelly in the direction of Coen movies like The Ladykillers, the place there’s nearly a mocking enjoyment of watching characters get murdered, no matter how deserving they’re. Thoughts you, there are a handful of sight gags in these bloody interludes worthy of the duo’s finest moments. However the regular elimination of perpetrators (to not point out collateral victims) weighs down what must be an effervescent thriller, ultimately underscoring the conclusion that the explanation Honey’s thriller is so powerful to unravel is as a result of Coen and Cooke overbaked it within the scorching solar of its California setting.
Margaret Qualley Cuts An Imposing Silhouette As The Movie’s Star
After enjoying high-profile roles in As soon as Upon a Time in Hollywood, Poor Issues, and The Substance that traded subversively on her coltish magnificence, Coen zeroes in on the calculating intelligence that underpinned these and different earlier performances by Qualley to provide Honey integrity and an interesting swagger.
There’s a great purpose that the general public she encounters are enthralled, or absolutely seduced by her, particularly with a wardrobe stuffed with impeccably female however powerful tailoring. With Honey, Qualley strikes extra confidently towards roles usually reserved for character actors, or no less than the flexibility of character actors, fairly than the ingénues whose lip-biting beforehand intoxicated her male costars. That Honey treats her sexual conquests extra like a male character in a film like this usually may — as fast to discard them as she is to seduce — not solely redefines the phrase “swinging dick” however underscores the fluidity of Qualley’s onscreen iconography.
Additional throwing off the squeaky-clean persona of Captain America in his post-MCU profession, Evans continues his tour of characters who’re both (or each) sociopaths and narcissists with Devlin, a self-serving and deeply corrupt group chief who, in Coen and Cooke’s depiction of Bakersfield, is much less a real villain than merely one in all quite a lot of doubtful choices for non secular steering. As Honey’s skilled counterpart, Day lends his native detective extra depth than a latter-day Barney Fife caricature, however he conveys in Marty a person extra keen on impressing individuals together with his job than doing it properly.
The opposite girls in Coen and Cooke’s script are maybe appropriately rendered in additional complexity than the lads, from Plaza’s MG to Kristen Connolly as Honey’s sister, Gabby Beans as Honey’s receptionist, and Lera Abova because the mysterious Frenchwoman who serves as an invisible lynchpin within the movie’s not-quite-connected string of deaths. However even with a stacked screenplay stuffed with formidable feminine roles, this bloody, small-town thriller finally feels an excessive amount of like a retread of territory that Coen explored to higher impact in movies together with his brother. Does that make Honey Don’t much less a movie impressed by neo-noir than the style and sensibility coined singularly by the Coens over two and a half a long time of teamwork? Maybe. Both manner, it doesn’t fairly stay as much as what got here earlier than it.
Honey Do not!
6/10
- Launch Date
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August 22, 2025
- Runtime
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90 Minutes
- Director
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Ethan Coen
- Writers
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Tricia Cooke, Ethan Coen
- Producers
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Eric Fellner, Robert Graf