A dark comedy about Honey O’Donahue, a small-town private investigator, who delves into a series of strange deaths tied to a mysterious Church.
Academy Award-winning director Ethan Coen continues his solo career separate from brother Joel Coen in this second installment of his and wife Tricia Cooke’s “Lesbian B-movie trilogy.” At a brisk 89-minute runtime, this movie doesn’t challenge the audience or societal norms; it does exactly what it was meant to do: provide B-movie entertainment designed to be consumed and discarded.
Margaret Qualley stars as Honey O’Donahue, a private investigator from Bakersfield, California, who talks like a character straight out of a noir detective classic, all while looking like she just stepped out of a Yves Saint Laurent ad. As a queer woman in a small town, Honey doesn’t fit in well with others in her orbit, and like other noir detective characters (“Chinatown”’s Jake Gittes comes to mind), that’s just the way she likes it.
Qualley is joined by Charlie Day, playing a bumbling police detective who keeps asking her out despite her repeated insistence that she likes girls, Aubrey Plaza as Officer MG Falcone, a similarly world-weary no-nonsense type and love interest, and Chris Evans as corrupt pastor Drew Devlin who runs a drug dealing, sex trafficking operation that poses as a church.
Reverend Devlin wants to keep the money flowing for his French bosses without abandoning his religious sensibilities. He refers to the drugs as “Our matter,” and dealers under his employ approach buyers with their “order.” Evans is still on his “No, seriously, I’m not Captain America anymore” tour. I didn’t find his character charismatic enough to be memorable. Other Coen villains have done it far better.
It wouldn’t be a neo-noir detective movie without bullets, blood, and plenty of sex—emphasis on the latter. There are many lesbian love scenes between Qualley and Plaza, including one intimate scene right out in the open. Plaza is given more time to shine at the end, making her character the most three-dimensional in the film.
“Honey Don’t!” doesn’t shy away from B-movie norms like disposability and raunchiness; it embraces them with panache. Despite its flaws, I found it enjoyable. And the movie is over before it starts to overstay its welcome, not unlike this month’s earlier 89-minute release, “Nobody 2.”
In Theaters Friday, August 22nd
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