Margaret Qualley is Honey O'Donahue (a name you will hear spoken a LOT over the course of the film), a private investigator in Bakersfield. She is essentially a classic noir gumshoe detective transported to sun-bleached, modern-day California. After a would-be-client dies, Honey begins an investigation that has her cross paths with Chris Evans's skeezy preacher and the mysterious French woman who represents his business partners. She is also attempting to provide support to her sister, who has a small army of children, including an eldest daughter who she is constantly at loggerheads with. All while working her way through the lesbian population of town, including embarking on a potentially more serious relationship with Aubrey Plaza's cop, MG Falcone.
Things start off strong, with an inventive opening that places the credits on various billboards and walls around town doing a good job of establishing a sense of place and Honey herself makes an immediate impression. Exuding laid back cool and sex appeal, it's easy to see how she could thrive in the male-dominated environment a private eye operates in, and a scene with a distraught Billy Eichner shows she puts the best interests of her clients above her profit margins. She is also incredibly horny, and with multiple OTT sex scenes, it's clear that writer Cook (who identifies as a lesbian herself) is determined to put a fun and frank depiction of the lifestyle on screen.
Qualley is backed up by a great supporting cast. Despite being best know as Marvel golden boy Steve Rogers, Chris Evans has shown a talent for portraying smug scumbags on screen and Reverend Drew Devlin is one of his best. Using his position solely for the purposes of sleeping with his congregation and peddling drugs he is ten percent cold and calculating villain, ninety percent overgrown man child. Aubrey Plaza has the hardest character to make work but delivers a typically solid performance. There are fun performances from Charlie Day, as a police officer unable to process the fact Honey is gay, and Lera Abova as French femme fatale Chere.
With a slick opening, stellar cast, slapstick violence and people doing the nasty left and right, the last thing Honey Don't should be is boring. Unfortunately, that's exactly what it is. The problem is, there just isn't enough going on plot-wise. The best movies of this type arrange their pieces then subtly bring them closer in clever ways, with the audience barely noticing until everything comes together like a well-orchestrated checkmate. This film places its pieces, looks at them for a bit, then takes them back off the board. Honey is an investigator but doesn't really solve any of the mystery, rather, things just resolve themselves by happenstance. The idea may be to portray her as getting the best out of life by going with the flow and being tough enough to deal with whatever comes her way but the void left by her not driving the plot isn't filled with anything else. Every character pretty much stays the same as the they are when first introduced and the dialogue isn't punchy enough to paper over the considerable cracks. The result is a film that teases a good time only to quickly run out of steam and leave you wondering how ninety minutes can last so long. It's a crying shame, because Honey is a great character to spend time with and deserves a better story to click clack her heels through.
There's things to admire in Honey Don't but the movie ends up being less than the sum of its parts. It is going to form part of a lesbian B movie trilogy, with last year's "Drive Away Dolls" and the upcoming "Go Beavers". While putting these kind of films out there is admirable, Coen and Cook might have been better served polishing up one really strong entry instead.
6 dildos cleaned in the sink out of 10.
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