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Wednesday, 27 August 2025

Review: Honey Don't!

Hitting our shores on a wave of mixed reviews out of the USA, Honey Don't! is the kind of film that definitely has problems if you're looking for them. It also has a fair bit going for it if you're willing to meet it at its own level - which, to be clear, is a pretty shallow level. But when it's a film about a lesbian PI investigating a case packed with wacky types you weren't seriously expecting "deep".

Honey O'Donohue (Margaret Qualley) is a love 'em and leave 'em California small town private investigator who feels bad that she never got back to a client in trouble before she (the client) died in a fairly suspicious car crash. So she decides to dig around, and uncovers a string of over-the-top types vaguely linked to a local preacher (Chris Evans) running a church that's big on bringing people to the lord via sex (with him).

Movies about private investigators have a long and proud tradition of not really making much sense. This barely hangs together, even when it throws in a few twists - Honey's niece (Talia Ryder) goes missing (or does she?), Honey strikes up a relationship with one cop (Aubrey Plaza) while brushing off another one (Charlie Day) - but eventually there's an answer of sorts.

This is a film where getting there is pretty much all the fun. A striking Qualley is largely the (not-so) straight man to a bunch of comedy types who are all playing it very broad but rarely stick around long enough to get annoying. Neither does the film at barely 90 minutes - big thanks to co-writer / director Ethan Coen (working with his wife Tricia Cooke) there. 

Oh yeah, it's directed by one half of the Coen brothers. If you're someone who's been worshipping the ground they walk on for the last few decades then a): good work forgetting films like The Ladykillers and Intolerable Cruelty, and b): this probably feels like a pale reflection of past glories. 

While it's true this is operating in a register the Coens made their own without ever reaching the heights of their best work, that doesn't make it a failure. Again, it definitely has flaws. For one, Honey is surrounded by over-acting, which sometimes makes it hard to figure out which deaths are tragic and which ones are more like "guess that just happened".

For another, the plot never comes together to resolve much of anything, which possibly is intentional. Again, often the problem is tonal; some elements are built up but turn out to only be there so something else can happen, while more than once an inevitable development is either ignored or skipped over.

But Honey Don't! is a decent small town noir investing heavily in the idea that a bunch of steamy lesbian sex - or ogling, or even just banter - can make up for its flaws. Better films have skated by on less.

- Anthony Morris 

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