Honey Don’t! is a dark comedy about Honey O’Donahue (Margaret Qualley), a small-town private investigator who delves into a series of strange deaths tied to a mysterious church.
Directed by Ethan Coen, this is the second in his lesbian B-movie trilogy after Drive Away Dolls, which centred on two women on a road trip.
Visually striking and dark as soot, Coen’s latest has received rather poor reviews, but this raunchy little slice of noir is a very enjoyable romp, just probably not the most memorable. It does have a tendency to ramble and forget itself, but as an erotic vignette filled with black comedy and off the wall characters, it has enough going for it to warrant the admission fee.
The cast, including the aforementioned Margaret Qualley in the starring role alongside Aubrey Plaza and Chris Evans, are all wonderful. Qualley is mesmeric in the role as the insatiable and easily distracted small-town sleuth. Chris Evans is perfect as the smarmy, narcissistic Reverend Drew Devlin, a man who practices all his devotions in the privacy of his tacky sex dungeon. While Plaza plays the role of one of several of Honey’s inconsequential love interests, no nonsense copper MG, with gusto.
Honey Don’t! is stylish, sexy, and satirical enough to keep viewers titillated for all of its 88-minute running time. This is a laidback old-school thriller with ultra-violent bursts, lowbrow humour, and weird and wacky characters aplenty. Straight off the pages of a vintage pulp fiction magazine, with some modern-day role reversals and a one-track dirty mind, it’s biggest flaw is without question it’s tendency to wander.
A throwback to simpler times, this neo-noir detective film is a surreal and deadpan affair, brimming over with tension but Coen is really not that interested in taking it anywhere. This is, indeed, truly frustrating.
Honey Don’t! refuses to commit emotionally, and sadly, what we are left with, is a case of wasted opportunity that doesn’t know if it’s coming or going.
(3/5)
