Time: 89 Minutes
Cast:
Margaret Qualley as Honey O’Donahue
Aubrey Plaza as MG Falcone
Chris Evans as Reverend Drew Devlin
Charlie Day as Marty Metakawich
Director: Ethan Coen

When Joel and Ethan Coen separated and started making their own movies separately, they seemed to be making very different movies from each other. Whereas Joel made The Tragedy of Macbeth, Ethan made Drive Away Dolls, the latter of which received some very mixed reactions, but I thoroughly enjoyed it. I was looking forward to Ethan’s next movie Honey Don’t! despite the less than stellar reactions, and while I still enjoyed it, I didn’t like it as much as I hoped I would.

You can see shades of past Coen Brothers’ movies in Honey Don’t!, with it being a neo-noir with quite a lot of bleakness despite the constant eccentric humour and off beat tone. The problem was that the central mystery of Honey Don’t! just wasn’t interesting to me, and I found much of the plot to be dull and bland. I enjoyed the vibes, the writing had its moments and it could be funny too. I was generally entertained and didn’t feel bored, but I didn’t have an investment in the plot either. It’s around 90 minutes long, and normally I’d say that it’s the right length for this kind of movie, but I think that it actually needed more time. The plot itself was all over the place, messy and unfocussed (and not even in an intentional way), and in the third act it completely falls apart, and it felt incredibly rushed.

As lesbian private detective protagonist Honey, Margaret Qualley is well cast and makes for a really enjoyable lead. Aubrey Plaza is also quite good and shares solid chemistry with Qualley, and Charlie Day is funny in his scenes. Chris Evans was probably the standout of the movie, he’s a lot of fun in his role here.

Ethan Coen directs this stylishly, with slick visuals and vibrant cinematography for this neo-noir, and I also liked the soundtrack.

Honey Don’t! is an unfocused and messy, but mildly enjoyable darkly comic neo noir, stylishly directed and with good performances.