1 of 6 | Margaret Qualley plays Honey O’Donahue in “Honey Don’t,” in theaters Friday. Photo courtesy of Focus Features LLC
LOS ANGELES, Aug. 21 (UPI) — Honey Don’t, in theaters Friday, is a slight but still entertaining caper from Ethan Coen. It shares a quirkiness with Fargo, The Big Lebowski and other dark comedies made with his brother, Joel Coen, but those films remain tough acts to follow.
Margaret Qualley stars as Honey O’Donahue, a private investigator whose client, Mia Novotny (Kara Peterson), dies in an automobile accident. The audience previously learned a French woman, later known as Chére (Lara Abova), is Mia’s killer.
Mia’s belongings lead Honey to the church of Reverend Drew (Chris Evans), who is operating a drug-dealing business with Chére. One of Drew’s couriers, Hector (Jacnier), accidentally kills one of his clients, complicating matters further.
The film tells a story in the vein of Blood Simple and Fargo, where not-so-bright criminals complicate simple crimes with their ineptitude, and end up committing far more serious crimes than the original ones. Drew’s henchmen are much more obvious, with slack jaws indicating they are confused by Drew’s simple orders.
There are a lot of convoluted events for a plot that amounts to a drug deal gone bad. As it spirals, there are plenty of Coen-esque accidental killings with unexpected implements. It entertains, but feels like leftovers since they’ve already used the wood chipper in Fargo and cattle gun in No Country for Old Men.
Honey’s niece, Corinne (Talia Ryder), also factors into the plot, introduced when she comes to Honey with a situation she hopes to keep from her mother (Kristen Connelly). Later, when Corinne goes missing, her disappearance also ties into the case.
Honey being a lesbian is treated as a quirk when it should just be part of her character. Having clueless homicide detective Marty (Charlie Day) repeatedly hit on her is a very outdated joke.
Honey’s relationship with officer MG Falcone (Aubrey Plaza) is noteworthy, however. Their encounter in a bar is palpably seductive, so their subsequent love scene is a genuine release.
The Coen brothers together rarely explored sex in their movies, and even the sex in Lebowski is absurd. There is so much sex in Honey Don’t, it runs the gamut from comical to passionate to sometimes gratuitous.
The very clue that leads Honey to Drew is related to a sex ring he runs with parishioners. Drew’s introductory scene is one such dalliance.
Honey and MG are appealing characters in the tradition of femme fatales and plucky go-getters. They do exist in the modern world but their manner alone sets them apart from most movies in 2025.
It’s surprising no character tells Honey she has moxie, since that’s the attitude Coen and co-writer Tricia Cooke are going for. Again, this is not the first Coen-related movie reflecting such characters, including Fargo, Raising Arizona, The Hudsucker Proxy and Intolerable Cruelty.
Likewise, no one in Honey Don’t could be called generic, to the point of sometimes trying too hard. For example, Honey’s assistant, Spider (Gabby Beans) wants to help but can’t find anything to do that Honey won’t do herself.
One of Honey’s new clients, Mr. Siegfried (Billy Eichner) still wipes down the chair he sits in because of COVID. An older man (Kale Browne) randomly appears, lingers too long and blurts out things that are not reassuring to the single women he’s following.
The film resolves a little too neatly but it’s not boring along the way. At under 90 minutes, Honey Don’t can afford to be a trifle of B-sides from a solo Coen brother.
Fred Topel, who attended film school at Ithaca College, is a UPI entertainment writer based in Los Angeles. He has been a professional film critic since 1999, a Rotten Tomatoes critic since 2001, and a member of the Television Critics Association since 2012 and the Critics Choice Association since 2023. Read more of his work in Entertainment.
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