HONEY DON'T (2025)

Oscar-winning writer/director Ethan Coen (No Country For Old Men, Fargo) and wrtier/producer/editor Tricia Cooke (The Big Lebowski, O Brother Where Art Thou) collaborate on their second film together for the second year in a row after 2024's Drive Away Dolls.  And once again, their film stars Emmy-nominee Margaret Qualley (Maid, Fosse/Verdon, The Substance) who this time is playing the titular Honey Donohue, who is a private detective investigating multiple murders around Bakersfield....could those crimes be connected?  And do they all lead to the local corrupt preacher Drew Devlin played by Chris Evans? (Captain America trilogy, Knives Out, Sunshine) And just how does a local cop named MG Falcone (Aubrey Plaza) whom Honey strikes up a romance with exactly factor into all of this?  Let's find out if even just one Coen brother can keep the magic going....  

Host: Geoff Gershon
Edited By Ella Gershon
Producer: Marlene Gershon

Transcript

HONEY DON’T – 2025

Directed by Ethan Coen

Starring Margaret Qualley, Aubrey Plaza, Chris Evans, Charlie Day, Lera Above, Jacnier, Gabby Beans, Talia Ryder, Kristen Connolly, Josh Pafchek, Don Swayze, Lena Hall, and Billy Eichner

Genre: Mystery Thriller (Audio clip)

Wow even just briefly knowing that it was getting mixed reviews, this was just a let-down. :( My first thought after leaving the theater was: 

"The Coen Brothers need to get back together."

I know it's trite as Joel and Ethan are clearly adults who can do whatever they want, branch out separately....after 35+ of consistently good-to-great movies, they have more than earned that. And Joel's The Tragedy of MacBeth wasn't particularly BAD, it was visually interesting....but with Denzel and Frances leading it, it should have been one of THE great Shakespeare adaptations and it was just serviceable. 

Ethan's last collaboration with co-writer/producer/wife Tricia Cooke - Drive Away Dolls - wasn't bad either, it was sweet, breezy, and it had a consistent tone. But the more I have thought about this movie in particular....it's quite simply BAD. It might even be the worst thing a Coen Brother has ever directed....though I likely need to revisit The Ladykillers or The Man Who Wasn't There (a film which bored me to tears sorry) to be 100% sure. 🙄  Quite simply, it feels like an incomplete film - it flirts with being a quirky neo-noir thriller (like some of the best Coen films) and it flirts with being a go-for-broke, hyper-violent erotic '90's type of thriller but it simply can't commit either way

This film has a surprisingly high body count (the DEATH kind just to be clear) and the violence gets to be SO overdone and belabored for that first half that Coen and Cooke completely lose their grasp of the type of story they're trying to tell. We're never clear on the overall mystery to be solved nor how Honey (who is a private detective) is attempting to solve it. 

To her credit, Margaret Qualley does the most she can with this role and presents a likeable protagonist. Also Chris Evans is clearly having fun as the over-the-top Reverend Drew Devlin, a small-town preacher with an apparently unquenchable libido who can also deliver stirring sermons about macaroni with the best of them. But both are just pretty much wasted here in what amounts to an attempt at a stylish neo-noir which is lacking both substance AND style....

Speaking of which, this is likely the worst-looking movie ever done by either Coen and that's pretty shocking in itself. I get that it's kind of unfair to expect them to ALWAYS have Roger Deakins on hand but the DP Ari Wagner for this movie is no slouch - just a few years ago, he lead the camera for both The Power of the Dog and Zola, two COMPLETELY different but both very well-shot films. (He received an Oscar nomination for 'Dog as well.) But his overall presentation of the town of Bakersfield here actually makes the admittedly tree-less town look even more washed out than it actually is....and yes, both the murder and love scenes appear more bland than they should. 

Best Needledrop (best song cue or score used throughout runtime of film): 

Apparently Margaret Qualley can sing AND she has a pretty nice voice.  This resulted in a side music project named Lace Manhattan for just this films soundtrack.  Lace Manhattan is produced by vaunted music producer Jack Antonoff, who himself has produced a TON of notable music from the likes of Taylor Swift, St Vincent, Kendrick Lamar, and several others.  Lace Manhattan contributes four very disparate songs for the film’s soundtrack including a very dreamy ballad which we hear early in the film though just having seen this once, I can’t be sure when….the song is the lovely “Little Black Star.” (Audio clip) 

But for me, the biggest musical highlight plays over a trope which I had thought was long-dead since the ‘80’s but Ethan brought back for this movie – it occurs right in the middle, it’s the “investigating montage” you know when we see our main protagonist going around town to talk with various suspects?  Honestly from an expositional standpoint, sequences like this can SOMETIMES come off as lazy but here it kind of works and it helps to have a good needle-drop to accompany it….so as we watch Honey having various conversations with potential suspects and/or witnesses around Bakersfield, we hear a very catchy mid-tempo ditty called, “In The Shine She Lies.” (Audio clip)   

Wasted Talent (most under-utilized talent involved with film):

For one thing, I love Aubrey Plaza but after this and Megalopolis, she needs to find a director who knows how to utilize her talents better. (Though admittedly I found her kinda fun in Megalopolis) Her police officer character MG who strikes up a sorta-romance with Margaret Qualley's titular Honey is almost abruptly shifted between three distinct character types within the story....with virtually no connective tissue to make it make sense. There just HAS to be missing scenes with her and beyond that, the love scenes between her and Qualley are just fumbled, devoid of tension or style. 

How do you screw that up?? 😄 The two actresses displayed definite heat on the press tour but not on screen...shades of Sydney Sweeney and Glenn Powell recently. Performative press tours aside, we just never get any sense of attraction between Honey and MG...and even worse, the scope of the overall crime driving the story.  Chalk it up to another misuses of Aubrey Plaza….

Trailer Moment (scene or moment that best describes this movie):

Slim pickings here as there were honestly very few scenes which actually landed for me but probably the best one occurs about roughly about a half hour/40 minutes into the movie….entirely dialogue driven and with two actors who are pretty much cooking here.  This involves Honey visiting Reverend Drew’s office at the church – to question him - and what results is a pretty well-written, spirited back-and-forth…. (Audio clip) 

MVP (person or people most responsible for the success of this film):

This is another default pick but a solid one for sure – as the titular center of this story, Qualley both looks AND sounds great, she has an effortless way about her and there’s little doubt that she’s a movie star.  Even portraying a pretty tropey private dick on paper, she brings both nuance and toughness to this character which is always believable….especially during one tense sequence when she faces off with a violent suspect one-on-one within a cramped trailer.  For delivering the most with weak material, Margaret Qualley is the MVP. (Audio clip) 

Final Rating: 1.5 stars out of 5 

Bottom line would I have disliked this film so much if it WASN'T directed by a Coen Brother? Quite possibly - Ethan and his brother have admittedly set the bar quite high for this type of thriller with Fargo, Blood Simple, and of course No Country For Old Men. But beyond that, there's just the bones here for a fun 21st century update of the '80's/'90's Neo-Noir - Aubrey Plaza seems BORN to play a femme fatale - and we get just enough few glimpses of that here that we can see it slipping away.   Sigh…..yeah sadly, next to Mission Impossible The Final Reckoning, this is probably the most disappointing film for me so far this year. 

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And that ends another CLICK-CLACKING review!