Ticketworthy! - Honey Don't

It’s always fun to see an auteur* filmmaker taking on a genre film, reveling in the camp and grunginess of old-school B-movies. Ethan Coen, one half of the famed Coen brothers, certainly qualifies as an auteur, and his newest outing, Honey Don’t, is unquestionably the kind of schlocky detective thriller that we haven’t seen in a very long time. It seems like a perfect recipe for a brilliant, subversive, entertaining film. It’s too bad that the movie can’t get out of its own way long enough to become any of those things.

The titular Honey, played with charm and sardonic wit by Margaret Qualley, is a hardened private investigator in a small California town. When a potential client winds up dead the day before their appointment, Honey is drawn into a tangled web of criminal plots and shady characters that put her detective skills to the test. 

Qualley is fantastic in the role, to the point that I genuinely hope to see her play more characters like this in the future. She comes off as just the right mix of jaded, angry, and genius to command attention every time she graces the screen. In a better film, this would probably have been a performance to rave about for a long time to come. Here, though, it’s buried under the overwhelming sentiment of “so what?”

The plot is a disaster, following at least four ongoing stories that only superficially intersect with one another until a final act twist ties it all together. That could work, it’s an interesting way to frame the narrative, except that the twist is so far out of left field that it honestly doesn’t even make sense. All of the plot lines are fine on their own and they each have characters and moments that I liked, but for most of the runtime they don’t feel like they’re in the same movie.  

There is no better example of this disconnect than Chris Evans’ character, Reverend Drew Devlin. His plot line serves as a connective tissue between several others but ultimately goes nowhere and accomplishes nothing. He did not need to be in this movie, and the character never feels like he belongs in the first place.  He’s over-the-top campy and villainous, to the point where he doesn’t fit with the rest of the narrative at all. It’s not a bad performance, it’s just a very strange one.

On the other end of the spectrum, we have Aubrey Plaza as MG Falcone, a police officer and Honey’s lover. Plaza plays her part shockingly reserved and subdued. While it makes sense for the character, it’s jarringly out of place with the tone of the rest of the film. She also doesn’t really do anything for the vast majority her screen time, existing only to be someone as jaded as Honey for the heroine to verbally spar with.

While the writing may be an absolute mess, I do have to give credit to the cinematography. The whole film looks great, and the shot choices are clever and noticeable in a very good way. Coen is a talented filmmaker, he’s proven that many times, and it’s clear he has a strong handle on the technical and artistic side of the job. 

It’s just a shame that the story and the lack of cohesion let all the rest of the movie down so completely. It’s an even bigger shame that it all lets Margaret Qualley down, because she deserved far better for her performance. It’s just about the only reason I’d recommend Honey Don’t to anyone, just to see her doing her absolute best. Otherwise, the film’s name is a depressingly apt answer to whether or not it’s worth seeing. Honey...don’t.