Even after his death in 2004, there’s still only one Russ Meyer, and this, the second solo outing from the Coen brothers’ Ethan, is a sad reminder of the talent he took with him to the grave. Meyer gave big parts to big women in films that shouted about SEX! in great big capital letters, bringing an artistry to the drive-in but never patronizing the sizable blue-collar audience that dug his bawdy humor. Honey Don’t! would benefit from even just a fraction of Meyer’s genius; as it is, there’s a reason why Coen’s film was tucked away in a graveyard slot on the last weekend of the Cannes Film Festival, much like you keep self-raising flour on a shelf that’s near impossible to reach because you don’t really ever use it.
The opening is certainly striking; a car is being chased, and it crashes somewhere in the desert, instantly killing the female driver. Out of nowhere comes a beautiful, bob-haired brunette, a Mia Wallace lookalike (Lera Abova) who wears leopard print on top of leopard print and rides a cute mod scooter. She inspects the body and rips a distinctive ring off its finger: a cross with a red dot. Cue the music (The Animals’ “We Gotta Get Out of This Place”) and a hectic Mondo Topless-style montage of the story’s setting, a very rundown Bakersfield. (You might be expecting to hear Carl Perkins’ song “Honey Don’t”, but Coen saves that for the end and uses Wanda Jackson’s version instead.)
This dead-end town is where we meet Honey O’Donahue (Margaret Qualley), a hella lesbian and gutsy private eye who likes to drink (“Heavily. It’s a point of pride”). Working with the local feds, Honey begins to investigate the crash, even though it has already been written up as an accident. What Honey isn’t telling them, though, is the fact the dead woman, a local bartender, had asked for her services in the days before her death. The case takes her to the local church, where pastor Drew Devlin (Chris Evans, in the kind of role Charles Napier would usually play) has a very hands-on way of communing with his congregation, and also the local police station, where she hooks up with cop M.G. Falcone (Aubrey Plaza), and the two embark on a passionate affair.
It promises to be a kitsch laugh-riot, but, like the last film, Drive-Away Dolls (2024), Honey Don’t! doesn’t tick any of the necessary boxes to become the cult film it obviously would like to be. The idea of a lesbian private eye isn’t even that new either, since Jess Franco had two in a pair of his most enjoyable exploitation movies (Sadisterotika and Kiss Me, Monster, both 1969). Qualley, who handles the role with a sass it doesn’t really deserve, carries the film to the finish line, which is no easy task given the proliferation of messy subplots, from the reappearance of Honey’s abusive father to the provenance of the mysterious brunette, who turns out to be French and in the pay of the pastor, whom she warns that “ze purple” — whoever they are — are nut vary ’appy wiz ’im.
Mercifully, it’s all over in under 90 minutes, but the ending — as well as being, well, just silly — raises more questions than it satisfactorily answers. Does this mean there’s going to be a third movie, effectively making this the second part of a loosely linked trilogy? Honey, don’t even think about it.
Title: Honey Don’t!Festival: Cannes (Competition)Director: Ethan CoenScreenwriter: Ethan Coen, Tricia CookeCast: Margaret Qualley, Aubrey Plaza, Chris Evans, Lera AbovaDistributor: Focus FeaturesRunning time: 1 hr 30 mins
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