Honey Don’t ★★★

Released: 5 September 2025

Director: Ethan Coen

Starring: Margaret Qualley, Aubrey Plaza

Over the last few years, we’ve had to sit through quite an array of long featured films in the cinema. Some are cinematic excellence, meanwhile others outstay their welcome. So, when a film gets released and it’s 89 minutes, surely that’s a dreamy set up for a weekend cinema trip. Ethan Coen’s second directorial Honey Don’t is short and sweet. While it’s a fun ride for the most part, sadly it’s forgettable.

Written by Coen and his wife, Tricia Cooke, the film begins with private investigator Honey O’Donahue (Margaret Qualley) being called out to a car crash scene in the middle of the desert, someone of whom may or may not be a client of hers. Even when on the job, she must remind police officer Marty (Charlie Day) that she is still very much interested in women when he keeps trying his luck at taking her out. Swiftly after we are then introduced to creepy church leader Drew Devlin (Chris Evans), who turns out isn’t as holy as he puts on. On the downlow, he’s a secret drug lord.

We find out lots of micro segments of information throughout the film, for example Honey’s dad comes back after being estranged from the family, her niece goes missing, somehow Drew is connected to the death of the crash victim, and she ends up in a romantic situation with police records officer MG (Aubrey Plaza) – though expect the unexpected with how this ends but audiences are in for the ultimate plot twist. All these subplots are in ways connected to the overall narrative, but at the same time they are not.

Coen and Cooke appear to be great collaborators when it comes to making a film that’s super fun and easy to watch, however their screenplays lack cohesion. That’s one of the more frustrating aspects of Honey, Don’t, with such a small timeframe to explore the characters and their stories we never truly find answers to their issues. These type of flaws in the narrative are like those in Drive Away Dolls, their first film together in their ‘lesbian B-movie trilogy’. Audiences are left feeling half full, with lots of unanswered questions.

Qualley’s performance as Honey is the highlight of the film. She’s dark-humoured in an old-Hollywood noir edge, but oddly throughout you can’t help but think the character shares similarities to her role as Jamie in Drive Away Dolls. Qualley and Plaza are the duo we didn’t know we needed. The chemistry between the pair is unmatched, but again the relationship between Honey and MG is something that could have been explored much further. The same could be said about Evan’s character Devlin. For some reason while Evans is innocent in his performance of his character, something lacks and it all centres back to its tight narrative.

Honey Don’t had vast potential to be a great second directorial effort for Coen but is ultimately let down by its own runtime. Plot hole after plot hole meaning the entirety of its story feels incomplete. That said, it’s a good time filled with a few laughs. This is one to watch on a Sunday afternoon to act as a quick fix for your Sunday scaries.