Following last year’s road caper Drive-Away Dolls, writer/director Ethan Coen continues his creative collaboration with wife Tricia Cooke in what is purportedly the middle chapter of a “lesbian B-movie trilogy”. Though the characters and story don’t overlap from its predecessor, Honey Don’t! once again stars Margaret Qualley, this time playing pertinacious private investigator Honey O’Donahue. She exchanges tips with dim-witted detective Marty Metakawich (Charlie Day), who informs her that one of her recent clients just died in a cliffside car accident. Working with police officer MG Falcone (Aubrey Plaza), Honey traces the client’s last whereabouts to the emergent Four-Way Temple, led by the charismatic Reverend Drew Devlin (Chris Evans).
Too often, Honey Don’t! feels like a B-side to a B-movie — incidentally, the Carl Perkins song that gives the film its title was also a B-side — but more in the sense that it feels like leftover parts as opposed to a companion piece. Like many Coen Brothers movies, Drive-Away Dolls featured a labyrinthine mystery with colorful characters but the case here isn’t as satisfying in its resolution and the parts don’t feel as fleshed out. Talented supporting players like Billy Eichner and Talia Ryder pop in for a few scenes but their presence doesn’t end up affecting the plot in a meaningful way. Chris Evans certainly makes a meal of his pseudo-cult leader role but there’s not much on the page to his hypocritical holy man schtick that’s unique from what we’ve seen before. And even in a comedy, it’s hard to take Charlie Day seriously as an officer of the law.
The primary way Honey Don’t! distinguishes itself from Drive-Away Dolls is in how it treats the sapphic storyline between its primary protagonists. The relationship that develops between Honey and MG has a thornier (and a word that rhymes with “thornier”) dynamic to it than the more wholesome one shared by Jamie and Marian in Dolls. The film is comparatively even more sex-forward than the already unchaste previous entry and Qualley and Plaza certainly put all of themselves into these characters. In addition to the physicality of the acting, the pair get the lion’s share of the script’s pithy pitter-patter dialogue, as when Honey and MG discuss the differences between crochet and knitting over drinks and more at the local watering hole.
Individual scenes in Honey Don’t! have passable pleasures on their own terms but they just don’t add up to much when it comes to contributing to a cohesive and cogent story. Shuffling through tropes like hasty kidnappings and drug deals gone wrong, the crime aspects of the film play like a Coen kineograph of reliable plot elements rather than thought out narrative. Through lines about quirky behavior and running jokes are basically the closest thing resembling character development that the film has. The undercooked script falls apart most in the third act, which tries to stitch everything together with a would-be payoff that neither feels earned nor makes much sense.
As underwritten as it is, Honey Don’t! never drags and is rarely dull, mostly due to Coen’s snappy direction that, like Drive-Away Dolls, completes its mission in under 90 minutes. The movie is set in present-day California but there are loads of retro flourishes, from the sepia-toned set design in Honey’s office to the throwback costume design, that give off 70s flair. No word yet on what Go, Beavers!, the proposed trilogy-capper, will be about but my hope is that no matter what, Margaret Qualley will, as she does in the first two entries, get to drive a cool vintage car in it. Honey Don’t! has style and swagger for days but its titular PI needed a more worthwhile case to crack for her first time out.
Score – 2.5/5
New movies coming this weekend:
Playing in theaters is Caught Stealing, a comedy crime thriller starring Austin Butler and Regina King, centered around a burned-out ex-baseball player who unexpectedly finds himself embroiled in a dangerous struggle for survival amidst the criminal underbelly of 1990s New York City.
Also coming to theaters is The Roses, a dark comedy starring Benedict Cumberbatch and Olivia Colman, updating The War Of The Roses as a tinderbox of competition and resentments underneath the façade of a picture-perfect couple is ignited when the husband’s professional dreams come crashing down.
Premiering on Netflix is The Thursday Murder Club, a crime comedy starring Helen Mirren and Pierce Brosnan, following four irrepressible retirees who spend their time solving cold case murders for fun and find themselves in the middle of a whodunit.
Reprinted by permission of Whatzup