Honey Don’t

Together, Joel and Ethan Coen have written and directed some of the most celebrated films of the ’80s, ’90s, ’00s, and ’10s. Separately this decade, Joel made a black and white Shakespeare tragedy and Ethan has been making lesbian comic capers. Anyone with a love of film is ready for the brothers to reunite for another deliberate, offbeat genre-bending diversion, which they promise is going to happen. In the meantime, Ethan’s second solo narrative feature, Honey Don’t, opens in theaters this week and is easy to enjoy for its own accessible mix of artistry and eccentricity.

Like last year’s Drive-Away Dolls, Honey is written by Ethan and wife Tricia Cooke, stars Margaret Qualley as a lesbian protagonist, and features talented, in-demand actors clearly taking pay cuts to make the modest budget work for Focus Features while affording them a chance to collaborate with half of the legendary sibling duo behind Fargo, No Country for Old Men, The Big Lebowski, Burn After Reading, and True Grit.

Drive-Away Dolls grossed under $8 million worldwide on a budget believed to be in the low eight figures to moderate acclaim. At a time when most studios have gotten out of mid-budget filmmaking, Focus surprisingly runs things back with Coen, Cooke, and another hot cast. I guess those gradual, ongoing Lebowski profits make it easy to say yes to a Coen, even just one of them.

Although the tone carries over from Dolls, the story and characters do not. This time out, Qualley plays Honey O’Donahue, a private eye in Bakersfield, California investigating the mildly suspicious vehicular death of a woman who was scheduled to become a client.

Coen and Cooke do not plot this as meticulously as the darkly funny films for which he is best known. There’s a very casual nature to the mystery, which allows us several peeks at Honey’s love life, including a steamy encounter with a helpful cop (Aubrey Plaza). Coen and Cooke have described their plan to make a trilogy of lesbian B-movies influenced by the ’70s. Two films in, it’s easy to see what they have in mind and the films are breezy diversions, good for an evening’s entertainment but unlikely to inspire endless quoting and repeat viewings like the Coen brothers’ triumphs. There’s certainly room for breezy diversions in an industry that has largely abandoned independent cinema and movies for grown-ups.

In what feels like her first solo lead role, Qualley proves she is more than comfortable as a movie star and leading lady. In the six years since Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood, the actress has already stretched herself in ways her mother Andie MacDowell never got to. At 30, there seems little doubt that Qualley is among the brightest and most promising talents of her generation and her gravitation towards weird, quirky, smart auteur cinema over the mindless paydays and franchises she must be getting offered is admirable.

The mysteries of Honey Don’t fail to come together in an inspired or fulfilling way, but the journey is fun enough not to dwell on the destination.

Chris Evans makes for a believably douchey church/cult leader whose ministry seems pretty centered on bedding submissive, troubled young women and filming it for posterity. It’s an easy target and the satire isn’t all that remarkable or funny, but even half of the Coen brothers signature wit will get you far and that’s without knowing what Cooke contributed to this.

In supporting roles, amusing contributions are made by Charlie Day and Billy Eichner. We also get Don Swayze, the younger brother of Patrick, playing a bartender; soap opera veteran Kale Browne stealing a couple of scenes as Honey’s estranged father; and Talia Ryder of 2020’s underseen Never Rarely Sometimes Always playing Honey’s drive-thru-working niece.

Thirty years ago, a dark comic mystery like this would have been one of many offbeat indies you could find in theaters. Today, there’s not a whole lot of movies like this being made and of them, few even get the privilege of a theatrical release. That’s enough to warrant some notice and to hope that the trilogy comes to fruition with the proposed Go Beavers.