Ethan Coen’s latest solo outing, the Margaret Qualley starring, lesbian centric crime thriller “Honey Don’t!” exudes the confidence of one of the greatest filmmakers of all time, now happily unmoored from the expectations of making one of the greatest films of all time. As one half of the Coen Brother filmmaking duo, Ethan and his brother Joel collectively wrote and directed so many culturally redefining films that it’s hard to list them all; “Fargo,” “The Big Lebowski,” “No Country For Old Men,” “True Grit,” “Baron Fink,” “Raising Arizona,” I could go on. As a team, the brothers are deified in film circles, having produced work of such high idiosyncratic quality that they passively command a mystical fascination. Frankly, to live in that space creatively sounds quite exhausting, so it’s no surprise that after 2018’s delightful “The Ballad of Buster Scruggs,” the brothers decided to part professional ways, looking to find fresh pastures to ply their trade with alongside their romantic partners. Joel went on to restage The Bard with his wife Frances McDormand in the brutal yet gorgeous “The Tragedy of Macbeth,” while Ethan, alongside his co-writer, longtime editor and wife Tricia Cooke, has made a cottage industry of sifting the classic noir and pulp crime novels that fascinated him as a young man through a feminist filter; first with “Drive-Away Dolls” in 2024 and now, to my mind, the vastly superior “Honey Don’t!”
There are two ways to read the eccentricities of “Honey Don’t!,” a boilerplate detective story made unique by its peculiar sense of comedy, dialogue, and unapologetic violence; all Coen trademarks. On the one hand, the film is a far cry from the bold, genre-redefining classics of Coen’s heyday. Books will not be written exclusively about “Honey Don’t!,” whereas many have been written about the Coen’s other films. The other perspective, the one to which this writer gladly professes, is that “Honey Don’t!” feels like the kind of movie Ethan Coen has wanted to make for a long time, something simple and bordering trite, entertaining without being profound, a quietly cool time at the movies featuring guns and sex and double crosses with more pulp than a carton of Minute Maid.
In a vacuum, “Honey Don’t!” could be misinterpreted as a calling card film of a young filmmaker, which follows a lonely private detective named Honey O’Donahue (Margaret Qualley). In a way, it is; with Coen riding the director’s chair solo for only the second time in his career and still working to find his own language as a filmmaker. There is a refreshing sense of discovery and confidence to the film, also an unimportance, as if the filmmakers themselves are only making the picture for their own enjoyment. I’m reminded of Stephen King’s late-in-life detective stories, unburdened by expectation or legacy, where the most prolific author in modern American History seems content to follow his whimsy with nothing more to prove. Often, this era of an artist’s career could fall into complacency and apathy. With “Honey Don’t!,” Coen, while still finding his footing, is clearly stretching himself, and I, for one, am here for it.
In the film, an easy-breezy eighty-eight minutes, a young woman is found dead in a ravine in an apparent auto accident. Days before, this woman had come to hire Honey O’Donahue for an unspecified case. Wracked by curiosity and more than a little guilt, Honey begins poking the edges of this girl’s disappearance, plotting a path that leads smack through the murderous dealings of a sex-crazed pastor (Chris Evans) and Honey’s own burgeoning infatuation with a local cop (Aubrey Plaza). Honey’s personal and professional life begin to hopscotch across one another between late-night hook-ups and after-work cigarettes as stylish French criminals buzz through town on Vespa scooters, and her boyfriend-battered niece begins to be stalked by an old man at the bus stop. You would be forgiven for believing that “Honey Don’t!” was based on the fourth or fifth book of some long-running detective story you’d never heard of. A delightfully sun-roasted noir, “Honey Don’t!” has no grand pronouncements to make beyond a call for simple kindness and an honest itch for justice. Gleefully providing the comfort of a beachside paperback, the film leaves us with the confidence that, despite the bloody results of her investigation, Honey will be back with her “click clacking heels” sooner than later. And I do hope to the sooner.
The Oscar-nominated Margaret Qualley has developed into a fascinating screen presence, trading her fast-talking Southern Belle persona from Coen’s “Drive-Away Dolls” for the stoic sass of a classic detective pulled straight from a Raymond Chandler novel. Qualley feels as confident as ever at holding the center of the story, pointedly throwing away the pitter-patter dialogue of a script that is pure catnip for an eager cast ready to show out. Plaza, as the sultry yet sweet cop, MG, adds some grit to Qualley’s chic, the pair providing a dynamite fire and ice cohabitation that’s easy to fall in love with. Then there is Chris Evans, Captain America himself, as the preening, predatory pastor in over his head. Here is the classic Coen dope, a man so confident in his ability to manipulate the world that he doesn’t realize he’s making Play-Doh of his own excrement. Evans is never better than when he’s using his charm to portray an absolute scum bag and is in fine form here. Charlie Day rounds out the cast as the homicide detective with the hots for Honey and the brain cells of a sea anemone, who’s good for a few clues but can’t get it through his head why a woman would want to only sleep with other women.
“Honey Don’t!” is a movie where folks have casual sex, smoke cigarettes in bed, brag about their drinking problems, and a private detective goes looking for clues in the back alleys of a small town left abandoned by the world. In short, my kind of movie. I don’t know about you, but I think this new Ethan Coen guy might have the goods as a director.
Put Honey on the case.
You’ll be glad you did.
“Honey Don’t!” is playing at Prytania Theatres at Canal Place.
