With an ear for noir-ish dialogue and a visual style that still feels very much like his work with his brother Joel, Ethan Coen’s Honey Don’t once again teams the filmmaker with wife/co-screenwriter Tricia Cooke (who used to be the Coen brothers’ editor and co-wrote Drive-Away Dolls with Ethan) and star Margaret Qualley as Bakersfield, Calif.-based private investigator Honey O’Donahue. Honey is looking into the death of a young woman in a car accident, which her family believes may be tied to her involvement with a religious cult led by Rev. Drew Devlin (Chris Evans).
Although the film is very much set in the present day, Honey’s stylish look, demeanor, attitude, and style of speech makes it clear she sees her line of work as something of a nostalgia trip to a time when private investigators were more commonplace, in both the zeitgeist and in criminal cases. But Honey is modern in other ways, as an out lesbian constantly and dynamically dodging the advances of every man she comes into contact with, including Devlin and her primary contact on the police force, Det. Marty Metakawich (Charlie Day), who knows full well Honey only dates women yet never misses the chance to ask her out just to see what creative excuses she dishes out.
Like many Sam Spade cases from the 1930s, the plot of Honey Don’t is almost secondary and deliberately difficult to track. In an effort to cover up certain crimes, more deaths occur, bringing Honey closer to solving her original case. She forms a professional and personal relationship with an officer in charge of the police evidence locker, MG Falcone (Aubrey Plaza), which leads to unexpected developments. And Honey also serves as a personal hero to her young niece Corinne (Talia Ryder), which doesn’t always sit well with her sister (Kristen Connolly), but it’s clearly an attachment Honey holds sacred.
As his first solo film proved, Ethan is eager to move away from the darkest corners of the crime world that he and his brother once explored. Instead, he’s here to have a bit of fun, leaning into the humor of every moment without writing jokes as much as creating situations that lend themselves to dark laughs. With a deepened voice and rapid-fire delivery, Qualley gives us the latest example of her impressive range and comedic timing. Not that there’s a lot of competition, but Honey is perpetually the smartest one in every room she enters, although in order to get what she needs for her case, she sometimes has to suppress outward signs of intelligence. It’s a magnificent balancing act that I never tired of watching, along with her stylish outfits and “click-clacking heels,” as Falcone phrases it.
Honey Don’t won’t set the crime genre on fire the way other Coen brothers films did, but as a showcase for Qualley and Plaza, I was fully engaged in this funny, sexy, sometimes devious little movie.
The movie is now playing in theaters.
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