‘Honey Don’t!’ Review: The Power of Chris(t) Almost Compels You in Ethan Coen’s Overly Sexualized Yet Sexually Timid Romp [B-]

In Honey Don’t!, Margaret Qualley’s Honey O’Donahue is handwashing a small but varied assortment of sex toys after a night of wild pleasure with Aubrey Plaza’s MG Falcone. The scene seems intended to play in two ways. First, as a reflection of the film’s wholehearted embrace of the joys of sex, especially in contrast to the secret goings-on of the neighborhood church. Second, it gets a laugh out of the absurdities that come with joyful sex, like having to hand wash dildos.

How successful Honey Don’t! is at achieving either or both drives Ethan Coen’s new film, part of his “lesbian B-movie trilogy,” alongside 2024’s Drive-Away Dolls. The film follows Honey, a private detective, as she investigates the murder of one of her clients. Her investigation leads her to the door of Reverend Drew Devlin (Chris Evans), the head of an aspiring megachurch. To no surprise at all, Drew is not as saintly as he would like his congregation to believe. His church is a front for his drug-smuggling operation, and for him to indulge his penchant for leather-bound assignations with his impressionable female churchgoers. Her investigation also puts her in the orbit of Detective Marty (Charlie Day), who is oblivious to her lack of interest in him, and Officer MG, with whom she sparks an intense but sort-of-casual romantic relationship. 

Like its titular character, Honey Don’t! is keenly aware of the silliness it’s mired in. Ethan Coen and co-writer Tricia Cooke craft a landscape of compellingly ridiculous characters doing compellingly ridiculous things, filtering the silliness through Honey’s detached but perceptive eye. Much of the film’s successful bone-dry humor comes from her being largely unimpressed by the incompetence or lack of common sense around her, but still taking it seriously enough. When Honey isn’t the focus, Coen retains her “You can’t be serious” energy, his camera taking on her tired skepticism as Reverend Drew scrambles around trying to sell drugs in between nonsensical sermons and threesomes. Some great comedic moments come from Coen and Cooke’s rush of silly errors and “what the fuck” irony: Reverend Drew haphazardly plots a drug runner’s murder while wearing only a jockstrap, while Honey and MG publicly finger each other in a bar while talking about knitting.

Funny as these moments are, the film’s lack of narrative and tonal cohesion somewhat undercuts the humor. Honey Don’t! often feels like two vignettes with tangential, almost coincidental connections. Although they engage with the same premise, Honey and Reverend Drew’s stories are largely separate from each other. You would think that there would be some cause and effect in her sleuthing and his volatile behavior, but their actions bear little significance on each other. It’s a strange storytelling choice because the film’s comedy-of-errors style would benefit from tighter integration. Cohen even shows us the potential when they finally meet more than halfway through the movie. It’s an entertaining tete-a-tete that emphasizes how he is a charlatan far out of his depth and she is barely even trying to outsmart him. We yearn for more of this dynamic, but Coen hedges. 

Or, perhaps, Coen edges. Besides its dry humor, Honey Don’t! makes a big show out of its sexual exploits. It wears kink on its sleeve, with more leather, bondage gear, dildoes, and sex positions than we usually get in mainstream films. However, Coen doesn’t necessarily own the film’s kinkiness. There is little examination of what sex means to these characters, which is disappointing since it involves religious fervor. We’re shown that Reverend Drew is a depraved individual, but we don’t know why. Is his narcissistic sexuality a function of his religion, or vice versa? Or is he simply a snake-oil salesman wearing the cloth as a distraction from his crimes? Similarly, with Honey, we don’t know much about her preferences for fly-by-night flings, and why she seems ready to give them up for possibly something more with MG. 

Funnily enough, the film does seem interested, both textually and metatextually, in sex’s role in our lives. It doesn’t feel coincidental that Reverend Drew’s affairs within his congregation are shaped by kink. Given, as Jessica Lange put it in American Horror Story: Coven, “bible thumpers’ hypocrisy towards sex,” the film seems interested in how religion, shame, and sex intersect and conflict with each other. Compared to Honey and MG’s love scenes, there’s an interesting contrast that reflects the possibilities of sexual freedom and the emotional consequences of not having it. Unfortunately, none of the characters is sketched out enough to fully explore this idea. The sex scenes themselves, while certainly enthusiastic, don’t necessarily inspire heat or hilarity, despite their intent. They feel surprisingly tame.

As for the metatext, it’s interesting that Coen captures Honey and MG’s love scenes in fully explicit detail (he literally positions the camera on Aubrey Plaza’s stomach while Honey performs oral sex on MG), while going to great lengths to keep Reverend Drew as clothed as possible, even when his partners aren’t. (It’s ridiculous to put an actor known as “America’s Ass” in a jockstrap and shoot him at a quarter-facing angle.) It almost feels like a commentary on how women are expected to perform sexuality and physical vulnerability while men aren’t. However, that read would benefit from a sharper perspective on sex.

The cast that Coen assembles does compensate for its unevenness, delivering easy-to-enjoy performances. Margaret Qualley is excellent as Honey, with her delightful 1940s noir-style accent and disaffected but sharp mannerisms that only enhance her natural, movie-star aura on screen. Chris Evans works best as a villain in a heightened setting, and Coen’s setting lets him go for broke. He delivers a balls-to-the-wall performance, unabashedly silly while sinister and volatile, having a blast in every scene. Charlie Day nearly runs away with the film with his sincere obliviousness, while Aubrey Plaza shows the varied dimensions of her dry, irreverent screen persona. 

Of its two aims, Honey Don’t! is most successful in finding the absurdities within sex, especially when it trusts in its own weirdness and its actors’ willingness to tap into that weirdness. Where it falters is in outright embracing sex and its role in the film. Whether the film’s timidity is a function of its scattershot, incomplete storytelling, or vice versa, Ethan Coen seems to be pulling his punches. Thanks to its memorable performances and some undeniably amusing quips and sight gags, Honey Don’t! is a fun watch. However, watching Margaret Qualley wash off those toys, I can’t help but feel like the film would’ve been more fun if it were dirtier.

Grade: B-

Focus Features will release Honey Don’t! only in theaters on August 22.