‘Honey Don’t!’ Review: Ethan Coen Makes a Mildly Amusing B-Movie

Thanks to a captivating performance by Margaret Qualley and an assured sense of style and hyperviolence, Ethan Coen manages to make ‘Honey Don’t!’ a memorable affair, even if it continuously stumbles along the way.

After the disappointment of Drive-Away Dolls, one wondered if Ethan Coen’s second installment in his planned “lesbian B-movie trilogy”, Honey Don’t!, would be any better. After Ethan and his brother Joel Coen parted ways to make their own films as solo artists, there was a lingering sense of doubt that their personal efforts wouldn’t be as worthwhile as their combined genius in a filmography spanning almost thirty years. And while Joel certainly had much success with The Tragedy of Macbeth, Ethan is having difficulty finding a footprint of his own, with Drive-Away Dolls and now Honey Don’t! being poorly received by both critics and audiences alike.

To be honest, Honey Don’t! may not be very good, nor will it be remembered as a fine moment in any of the brothers’ respective corpus of films. However, I won’t lie and say it’s all bad, or it’s an unmitigated disaster — far from it. There’s a bigger sense of amusement here that was sadly lacking in the almost unwatchable Drive-Away Dolls, from the nonsensical, almost unimportant plot to a more refined visual language in service of the aesthetic tropes Coen and co-writer Tricia Cooke want to emulate this time around.

Cinematographer Ari Wegner immediately strikes our attention by framing its cold open in 2.39:1, before the aspect ratio suddenly shifts in its DIY-esque opening credits sequence, where names of its primary cast and crew members appear as signage, or graffiti as the camera careens around town. While watching those moments, one has the impression that Honey Don’t! will make a turning point in Ethan’s solo directorial career, only for the movie to suddenly meander when introducing audiences to Honey O’Donoghue (Margaret Qualley), a private detective who is investigating the strange murder of a member of a Scientology-like cult ran by the sex-crazed Reverend Drew Devlin (Chris Evans).

From there, the story moves in all different kinds of directions. We go from the burgeoning relationship between Honey and police officer MG Falcone (Aubrey Plaza), to the disappearance of her niece Corinne (Talia Ryder) that may or may not be linked with the Reverend’s connection with French drug traffickers?? How did this go from point A to point ZY all of a sudden? The strangest thing about all of it is how each plotline are haphazardly linked together by one single thread. For example, one character has an interaction with what looks like a random extra, which gets eventually revealed as a key player with extreme personal ties to Honey, the “anchor being” of this entire thing.  

Sometimes, it’s funny, but more often than not, it makes very little narrative and cohesive sense. Eventually, you end up surrendering to Coen and Cooke’s freewheeling script that seemingly throws everything at a wall to see what sticks – from slapstick comedy to over-the-top violence that begins as cartoonishly goofy (one fight in particular recalls the RV confrontation in Quentin Tarantino’s Kill Bill Vol. 2) and concludes in a rather distasteful, almost exploitative fashion. It also features an extended sex scene between Qualley and Plaza that made three people walk out in my screening, with one of them promptly yelling, “This is woke!” before storming out of the cinema in anger. This was extremely funny, because didn’t you know what type of movie you were going into before screaming “woke” at a relatively empty cinema? Dear lord…

But I digress. The meat of the story is about Honey attempting to find out who is behind the murder of Devlin’s churchgoer, yet it constantly veers in many directions until the plot becomes completely imperceptible. What should be the focal point of attention for audiences to latch onto? Who knows…and who cares? Because at that point, Coen tells us it’s fine to not give a damn about what’s going on. It’s all about the vibes, dammit! They aren’t immaculate, but they certainly are quite entertaining. And it starts with Qualley, who hasn’t been giving good performances for some time, but completely steals the show at every turn as Honey O’Donoghue. Her nonchalance is note-perfect and adds some great texture whenever she delivers a killer line, such as, when responding to Devlin asking if she drinks, “Heavily. It’s a point of pride.” Line of the year.

The chemistry she shares with Plaza in the opening half is also incredibly tantalizing, until Coen completely jumps the shark and gives us a giallo-esque conclusion that makes very little sense if one stops to think about it for a second. But then again, it’s part of a trilogy of B-movies, and its filmmaker seems to fully embrace the good and the bad about cheesy, sex-fueled and ridiculously violent cheap noirs. It doesn’t have the verve of some of the films made in the 1950s, but it’s got enough of a formal edge (notably, incredible transitions and an efficient employment of split diopters) to set itself apart from how stultifying Drive-Away Dolls was.

And compared to Ethan’s previous directorial effort, Honey Don’t! is a dynamic, and often amusing B-movie that doesn’t require much from the audience but enjoys the vibes that Coen and Cooke offer. It’s not trying to be about something other than a mere exercise in form and tone that few filmmakers are afraid to do in an era where people think criticism equates pointing out the “plot holes” and “storylines” instead of appreciating the movie as a whole (thanks, CinemaSins!). As a result, any movie that makes “no sense” is immediately dismissed as irrelevant.

While it certainly feels like minor work from Ethan, Honey Don’t! is far from irrelevant, and in, fact, does prove that Coen indeed has a future in his solo directing career, provided his screenplays don’t meander too much for the conclusion of his trilogy with the (likely) upcoming Go, Beavers! However, when doing a B-movie, the screenplay has to be (intentionally or not) a bit stilted. Otherwise, what’s the point?

Grade: [B-]