Honey O'Donahue is a Chandler-esque private detective who often fails to finish assignments because she gets sidetracked by subplots, attractions, and curiosities. The film meanders through sun-blasted, noirish landscapes, favoring leisurely detours and quirky character encounters over tightly plotted exposition. Violent encounters occur in sporadic bursts of darkly comic nastiness while bodies accumulate with absurdity. Ethan Coen directs solo again with co-writer and collaborator Tricia Cooke, producing a trashy, queered-up B-movie sensibility that echoes Drive-Away Dolls. The movie prioritizes vibe and eccentric personalities, revealing strengths in tone and performance despite a deliberately loose narrative focus.
Margaret Qualley's Chandler-esque private eye Honey O'Donahue is actually not that good at her job. That's one of the many running jokes in Ethan Coen's comic sun-blasted noirish caper Honey Don't!, in which the titular gumshoe even tries to talk a potential client (Billy Eichner, a hoot) out of hiring her. Having Honey expose his cheating partner would just be wasting his money, she insists. Turns out, she's right.
She's got all the right instincts, and can typically sniff out the scoundrels in her midst. Her brow almost always stays furrowed, especially when she's in a room with men, as if she's got a resting interrogator face. But she's rarely committed to the assignment, or just too easily distracted by curious subplots and hot lesbians to get the job done.
The same can be said of Honey Don't! as a whole. The movie is just as liable to amble along on detours or be seduced by something or someone on the margins. That's not necessarily a bad thing. It's kind of integral to the whole vibe. This is Ethan Coen's second outing after last year's Drive-Away Dolls without his brother Joel.
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