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Honey Donahue (Honey Don’t!)

kevinburtonsmith

Created by Ethan Coen & Tricia Cooke

“Why do you assholes always have guns?”
— Honey confronts an abusive, MAGA-loving  boyfriend

Actor Margaret Qualley and screenwriters Ethan Coen and Tricia Cooke reunite after Drive Away Dolls (2024),  the second in what they’re calling a “lesbian B-movie trilogy.”

Billed as a “dark comedy,” the Cohen-directed Honey Don’t follows HONEY O’DONAHUE (Qualley), a sassy small town detective with an office in a mall and an office manager named Spider in sun-fried Bakersfield, California, She tools around in a vintage powder blue vintage Chevrolet SS convertible, and is quite handy with a blackjack — especially when it comes to men who abuse women. Her bread and butter seems to be cheating spouses, but here she finds herself facing off (in her click-clacky heels) against the Four-Way Temple, a local church which may (or may not) be behind a string of mysterious deaths.

Also along for the ride is Chris Evans as Reverend Drew Devlin, the sleazy pastor of Four Ways, and a couple of friendly (too friendly?) local cops to help her out: Detective Marty (Charlie Day) who is always asking her out despite Honey constantly telling him “I like girls,” and MG Falcone (Aubrey Plaza), who works in records and is a girl Honey could like.

Meanwhile, Honey’s kid sister Heidi is overwhelmed by a houseful of kids to handle, and it isn’t doing well — particularly with her rebellious teenage daughter Corrine, a server at a hot dog joint who has a few problems of her own.

It’s a surprisingly raucous affair, for sure, and the film doesn’t shy away from sex. It’s also rounded out with a Coenesque cast of characters, including several lowlifes working for Drew, a cheating husband, an abusive boyfriend, a creepy old man (and possible sex fiend), and a mysterious, scooter-riding Frenchwoman who has leopard skin panties and is fronting for a drug cartel. Plus more than a few subplots.

You’d think everything would come together at the end, but sadly, they mostly don’t. Loose threads aren’t so much tied together as snipped off, or just left to dangle, and the film just limps to a conclusion.

Disappointing.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Director and co-screenwriter Ethan Cohen is, of course, one half of the Coen Brothers, who’ve given us a slew of memorable crime films, including Blood  Simple, The Man Who Wasn’t There, Miller’s Crossing, Raising Arizona, The Big Lebowski, Fargo, Hail, Caesar!, True Grit (the good one) and No Country for Old Men. He’s also the author  Gates of Eden (1988), a collection of short stories, some of which feature his own peculiar takes on private eyes and other denizens of the pulps.

Tricia Cooke is an American film editor, screenwriter and producer, whose credits include Drive Away Dolls, The Notorious Bettie Page, and Where the Girls Are, as well as many of the Coen Bros. films. She married Coen in 1993, and they have two children, although Cooke identifies as a lesbian. She describes her marriage to Coen as “‘non-traditional’, with both having separate partners outside their marriage.”

THE EVIDENCE

FILMS

FURTHER INVESTIGATION

Respectfully submitted by Kevin Burton Smith.

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