This poster for the detective thriller Honey Don’t! has an almost retro feel. After some advance festival screenings during the summer the movie officially premiered today. We don’t do much on modern movies, and almost never write up brand new ones, but Ethan Coen was half of the team that made one the greatest neo-noirs ever in Blood Simple, so we thought we’d have a look. We didn’t manage it on the premiere date, so this is a backpost, which regular visitors here know we slip into the site on occasion. Keeps you on your toes.
What you get in Honey Don’t! is Qualley as a tough Bakersfield, California private eye whose almost-client dies in a car accident. Qualley was supposed to meet with the deceased later in the day to determine whether to take on a case, so the death leads to questions of why, when, and how that send Qualley into the weird orbit of evangelist—and too-obvious criminal—Chris Evans.
Honey Don’t! has the trademark Coen black humor and treats the characters in ruthless fashion, as expected from half of the creative team behind Blood Simple, Burn After Reading, Intolerable Cruelty, and the epochally brilliant Miller’s Crossing, but the screenplay (co-written with Tricia Cooke) doesn’t have the lock-tight precision of those other efforts. Evans’ huckster preacher character leans too far into caricature, and Plaza is pushed past her range by her frustrated cop role.
However, Qualley gives her smart-mouthed sleuth Honey O’Donahue enjoyable wit, grit, and cynicism (if perhaps not 100% believable for her years) and her lesbian status is played for a few genuine laughs (at male expense). She’s a stick, but a tall one, so she’s convincing enough as a physical presence when shit hits the fan. She made a scattered and sometimes pointlessly ironic movie work for us—barely. Flawed though it is, we’ll watch Honey Don’t! again just to live for a couple of hours in a place that’s by all known measures extinct—the realm of cinematic hard-boiled detectives.
Within that realm we love so much, Honey Don’t! refuses to be neutered. It contains elements that a large percentage of film critics and moviegoers hate on principle—flowing blood, unpredictable death, unapologetic sexuality, and nudity. The movie is made for adults that don’t expect their assumptions reinforced. Could a woman really fingerbang another unnoticed in the middle of a cop bar? No, but moments like that feel like a shout against a prevailing wind. That’s why we thought Honey Don’t! was important to have on our site.
