Honey Don't ★★

Stars:

Maragret Qualley, Aubrey Plaza, Chris Evans

Writers:

Ethan Coen, Tricia Cooke

Director:

Ethan Coen

Where: In Cinemas from 5 September

The question of whether Ethan Coen’s (No Country for Old Men and Hail Caesar) trilogy of lesbian B-style movies is a success is extremely questionable, as this film sadly disappoints. With its incredibly short running time, it packs too much story-wise and has an overload of questionable choices.

A private detective (Margaret Qualley) is uncovering a murder mystery that unravels into a much bigger situation than anyone could have anticipated. This main plotline goes into cults, drug deals, a cheating scandal, and more, in a film that is widely unfocused and leaves lots of unsatisfying unresolved plotlines. An abundance of ever-changing stories slammed into an 89-minute running time inevitably proves to be an impossible feat. A shockingly-written script by Coen and Tricia Cooke that continuously tries everything but fails, with the strongest element that displays this being the humour, with certain moments becoming truly unnecessary or cringy. Overall, it is a poorly made film with a few entertaining fight scenes but is mostly disjointed and uneven.

Coen again aims for a B-style format, which he successfully pulls off with what looks incredibly low production values and is visually uninteresting. The film tries to tackle the neo-noir genre in an overly light sunshine landscape, messy motel-style rooms, and rusty decaying spaces. The landscape filmed in New Mexico has much potential, and tropes are all in place for this film, but it does not quite create a dark, moody feel or anything noteworthy. Margaret Qualley’s character embodies the ideal noir detective, but the other characters do not fit this world and are all wildly different from one another.

When looking at the cast, they all deliver strong performances, but the script limits their range, with most female roles, such as Margaret Qualley’s or Aubrey Plaza’s, portraying very monotone characters that have sparks of personality; they nail their character brief but are not engaging to watch. While Chris Evans and Charlie Day have extremely overly charismatic characters that draw everyone’s attention and add much life into what is a very dry film. Sadly, the remaining cast members don’t have enough noteworthy time, which is disappointing, as the characters played by Lera Abova and Don Swayze really could’ve benefited from being explored more. This again links back to poor writing, with nobody being fully developed or shown any growth, with no ‘Oscar nomination scene’ anywhere for anyone.

Overall, Honey Don’t struggles with tonal inconsistency and feels markedly incomplete in both its script and visuals. While it offers a few standout scenes and ambitious ideas, the film fails to follow through, resulting in an uneven execution. A fantastic cast that is sadly unutilised; like everything in this film, there is such great potential. With a third film scheduled for release in the future, it is hoped that Coen will address these many issues to redeem the trilogy. It ultimately stings how badly they fumbled this.