(A Neo-noir comedy, Lesbian B movie)
Directed by Ethan Coen
Written by Ethan Coen & Tricia Cooke, with Margaret Qualley as Honey O’Donahue, a wisecracking P.I .who happens to be a lesbian. Aubrey Plaza as MG Falcone, a cop and Honey’s sometime lover.
Chris Evans as Reverend Drew Devlin, a cult leader/drug dealer/horndog. Charlie Day as Marty Metakawich, a clueless police detective and Lera Abova as Chère, a sex-pot assassin.
Honey Don’t! is what a lesbian detective movie would look like if Mickey Spillane wrote it. ( ”How could you?” ”It was easy”) Honey is a les, but she’ll still a dame, yeah, more dame than a maroon like youz can handle. Mug.
It seems the name Coen in the credits has engendered confusion in the minds of some critics who expect another Fargo or The Big Lebowski , despite the fact it is marketed as a B picture with the hashtag ”Something is going down in Bakersfield.” One would think even English majors and film school grads would tumble to the idea this movie it is not cut from the same bolt of cloth as the usual Coen Bros. production. Such people are seldom distracted from their expectations.
There has been a lot of chatter about ”lesbian” sex scenes in this movie. Well boys, your male gaze best look elsewhere. Nudity, yes. There is as much sex as there were stab woulds in the shower scene in Hitchcock’s Psycho. Its more like Satchmo singing:
“Give me a kiss to build a dream on
And my imagination will thrive upon that kiss.“
The elements of mystery and detection are present. A women dead in a car crash robbed of a ring. A poor soul suspects his lover of infidelity (count on it). A drug deal gone wrong. Murder, then more murder. A killer goes free, but she has the virtue of good looks.
Then there is the Reverend Drew Devlin, Pastor of the Four Ways Temple: Action, Duty, Passion and, Submission. He’s not yet a billionaire nor has he been within a 1000 miles of the enchanted Epstein Island, but you just know he is up to No-Good. More-so, the Temple is the fiefdom of the mysterious entity known as only the “French” (cue: alarm bells).
Despite the fact it is advertised as a B movie, the second, after Drive-Away Dolls, in a purposed Lesbian B movie trilogy all featuring the talented while luscious Margaret Qualley; all story elements are tied-up by the end, unlike the recent fiasco titled One Battle After Another.
Margaret Qualley’s Honey O’Donahue is a wise cracking observer of the human condition in the tradition of Raymond Chandler’s Philip Marlow and Robert Parker’s Spencer (”I ‘ve heard you were overly fond of your own wit.”).
When asked on a date by a bewildered cop Honey responds, ”I like girls”. We are told she has ”amazing sex” with girls, but we never see it. Sorry guys. Violence is another matter, however.
Margaret Qualley is slated to appear in the third of the Coen/Cooke lesbian B movie trilogy, Go, Beavers. Perhaps the critics will realize their mistake. I doubt it.
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