Honey Do not! (2025) – Film Evaluation

Honey Don’t!, 2025.

Directed by Ethan Coen.
Starring Margaret Qualley, Aubrey Plaza, Chris Evans, Charlie Day, Lera Abova, Jacnier, Gabby Beans, Talia Ryder, Kristen Connolly, Josh Pafchek, Don Swayze, Lena Corridor, Alexander Carstoiu, Kale Browne, Christian Antidormi, Billy Eichner, Kinna McInroe, Sean J. Dillingham, Jude Atencio, Sean Philip Glasgow, Donny Ness, and Gloria Sandoval.

SYNOPSIS:

A darkish comedy about Honey O’Donahue, a small-town personal investigator, who delves right into a sequence of unusual deaths tied to a mysterious church.

There’s a temporary second the place Honey Don’t! – the second collaboration between Ethan Coen, his spouse Tricia Cooke, and star Margaret Qualley – seems to be getting sooner or later or objective to its story, with dialogue straight juxtaposing the sexually free natures of personal detective Honey O’Donohue (Qualley) and slimy Reverend Drew Devlin (Chris Evans).

Each of them take up intimacy companions inside their line of labor; old school relating to her job, however not in fashionable occasions, Honey begins a kinky tryst with police station employee MG Falcone (Aubrey Plaza) and retains it separate from her investigations and with out letting her sexual adventures get in the best way of her abilities. In the meantime, Drew makes use of his place of energy and twists spiritual doctrines right into a manipulative mantra to get equally kinky with no matter lonely, susceptible souls on the lookout for a brand new place of belonging he finds enticing. This quantities to roughly two minutes and one scene of one thing fascinating occurring within the narrative, which, not like their first collaboration, Drive-Away Dolls, is lacking some massive laughs.

Honey Don’t! introduces a thriller with a mysterious French girl, Chere (Lera Abova), sifting by way of the location of a deadly automotive accident and rummaging by way of the sufferer’s belongings, accumulating one thing for somebody. It’s a case for Honey to work alongside the police division, sometimes reporting to Marty Metakawitch (Charlie Day), a innocent goofball who can’t assist himself from repeatedly making an attempt to get her quantity, although she repeatedly reminds him she prefers ladies. The truth that one of many solely respectable operating jokes in an LGBTQ comedy comes from a straight man primarily pestering for a date isn’t a very good signal; Charlie Day could make absolutely anything work. Nevertheless, nobody inside the proficient ensemble could make the remainder of the film worthwhile.

To place it bluntly, there are too many different concepts occurring right here that not solely all the time match into the narrative, however aren’t given sufficient time to breathe or quantity to something inside an 88-minute operating time. Roughly ten of these minutes are additionally opening credit (which take some time to get by way of as they’re fused into some cleverly elaborate manufacturing design exhibiting off quite a few locales of this small city) and ending credit. At a sure level, the central thriller virtually feels dropped for one more one involving the disappearance of Honey’s downside little one niece, Corinne (Talia Ryder), who’s courting a bodily and emotionally abusive MAGA jerk.

Additionally orbiting these mysteries are characters caught up in drug-running going south, consisting of subplots that really haven’t any objective, and attain the purpose of working mean-spirited gags into the deaths of innocents. The movie is consistently pulling itself into so many alternative instructions that even its protagonist begins to really feel like an afterthought and absent for prolonged durations of time (when one considers how brief the film is). Honey has additionally been employed by Mr. Siegfried (Billy Eichner) to acquire data on visible proof that his companion is dishonest on him, which she isn’t essentially making a degree to dig into.

Apart from the occasional scattered snigger, one of many solely shiny spots right here is the chemistry between Margaret Qualley and Aubrey Plaza, every of whom has a distinct relationship with their class and sexual identities. Nevertheless, even that builds to nonsense that’s solely mildly stunning for a way little sense it makes. Contemplating all of those folks really feel like shells of characters, it doesn’t lend any pleasure to the story. Your complete narrative right here is hanging on by a thread: Honey Don’t! (see this film).

Flickering Fable Score – Movie: ★ ★ / Film: ★ ★

Robert Kojder

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