‘Honey Don’t’ review: Ethan Coen and Tricia Cooke throw Margaret Qualley into her own whodunit
4/5 mysterious cult robes
Margaret Qualley is Ethan Coen and Tricia Cooke’s darling and Honey Don’t proves why. The Drive-Away Dolls follow up has Qualley as Honey O’Donoghue, a detective in Bakersfield, California who finds herself investigating a religious cult led by Reverend Drew (Chris Evans).
A classic whodunit, Honey Don’t uses comedy and a thrilling love story between Honey and her hot cop, MG (Aubrey Plaza) to keep its audience off the scent of what is actually unfolding. And it allows for the viewer to just have a fun time. Honey Don’t isn’t asking you to dive deep into your psyche and that makes it feel like the classics that the Coen brothers used to give us.
Honey as a character is one who is so connected back to old school detective that I truly didn’t know what time period we were in until a cop (Charlie Day) keeps asking for her cellphone number and it is revealed he has an iPhone. But I find that part of Honey Don’t‘s charm. You never can quite put your finger on Honey’s entire deal and I don’t think you necessarily need to.
She’s a detective who loves a 1960s inspired look and refuses to let her assistant do anything she was hired to do. She sleeps around like the old school male detectives of movies past and can hold her own against Reverend Drew’s sexual advances and it makes this imperfect whodunit captivating to watch.
There are things that don’t necessarily add up but that’s also what I love about the genre. Sometimes, it is messy and that’s okay and that’s why I think this is such a fun time. Plus it is in that sweet Coen run time spot where it isn’t too long and doesn’t oversaturate its audience.
Chris Evans is having the most fun
Chris Evans’ post Marvel career continues to be fascinating. If anything, it feels like he just wants to have fun and I kind of love it for him. In Honey Don’t, Drew is the religious leader of a church that uses the word of god for more “sensual” connections. Basically it is Chris Evans doing a bunch of comedic sex scenes and that’s all you really need to know.
But his performance as Drew is captivating all because you can tell that Evans is having fun. Roles like this can either make or break a movie and seeing Evans lean into the more outrageous aspects is almost joyful to watch. And you kind of understand why a lot of people would join a sex cult that Evans is leading.
I do think that the genre is a surprising fit for Evans. Drew is a bit more of overly outrageous figure versus his previous work as Ransom Drysdale in Knives Out but it is a performance that will have you remembering that Evans was one of the best characters in the Rian Johnson film.
Huge for the Aubrey Plaza fan in us all
Look, you’d be hard pressed to find someone who isn’t a fan of Aubrey Plaza. If you find someone, they probably just didn’t know who she was and what a fun journey for them. But what makes MG so fascinating is that she follows Plaza’s recent trend with characters that leans into this energy that Plaza gives off. We saw it with Rio in Agatha All Along and now MG is going to be another new obsession for fans of Plaza’s work.
And you can tell she’s having a blast being in a Coen film. If there was ever an actor who I thought would fit in with the Coen vibes, Plaza is high up on the list and it is nice to be right about that. Her chemistry with Qualley is addictive to watch.
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Overall, I think that Honey Don’t is a fun watch. It isn’t changing the genre or bringing anything completely knew to Coen’s filmography but it is a reminder that sometimes, we can have a lot of fun with a whodunit and that’s what makes them so great. Plus, I’d watch Honey O’Donoghue solve cases for the rest of time.
(featured image: Focus Features)
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