Even after his loss of life in 2004, there’s nonetheless just one Russ Meyer, and this, the second solo outing from the Coen brothers’ Ethan, is a tragic reminder of the expertise he took with him to the grave. Meyer gave large elements to large girls in movies that shouted about SEX! in nice large capital letters, bringing an artistry to the drive-in however by no means patronizing the sizable blue-collar viewers that dug his bawdy humor. Honey Don’t! would profit from even only a fraction of Meyer’s genius; as it’s, there’s a motive why Coen’s movie was tucked away in a graveyard slot on the final weekend of the Cannes Movie Pageant, very like you retain self-raising flour on a shelf that’s close to not possible to achieve since you don’t actually ever use it.
The opening is definitely hanging; a automotive is being chased, and it crashes someplace within the desert, immediately killing the feminine driver. Out of nowhere comes a fantastic, bob-haired brunette, a Mia Wallace lookalike (Lera Abova) who wears leopard print on high of leopard print and rides a cute mod scooter. She inspects the physique and rips a particular ring off its finger: a cross with a crimson dot. Cue the music (The Animals’ “We Gotta Get Out of This Place”) and a busy Mondo Topless-style montage of the story’s setting, a really rundown Bakersfield. (You is likely to be anticipating to listen to Carl Perkins’ track “Honey Don’t”, however Coen saves that for the top and makes use of Wanda Jackson’s model as an alternative.)
This dead-end city is the place we meet Honey O’Donahue (Margaret Qualley), a hella lesbian and gutsy personal eye who likes to drink (“Closely. It’s some extent of pleasure”). Working with the native feds, Honey begins to analyze the crash, although it has already been written up as an accident. What Honey isn’t telling them, although, is the very fact the useless girl, a neighborhood bartender, had requested for her companies within the days earlier than her loss of life. The case takes her to the native church, the place pastor Drew Devlin (Chris Evans, within the sort of position Charles Napier would normally play) has a really hands-on approach of communing along with his congregation, and likewise the native police station, the place she hooks up with cop M.G. Falcone (Aubrey Plaza), and the 2 embark on a passionate affair.
It guarantees to be a kitsch laugh-riot, however, just like the final movie, Drive-Away Dolls (2024), Honey Don’t! doesn’t tick any of the mandatory containers to turn out to be the cult movie it clearly want to be. The thought of a lesbian personal eye isn’t even that new both, since Jess Franco had two in a pair of his most pleasing exploitation films (Sadisterotika and Kiss Me, Monster, each 1969). Qualley, who handles the position with a sass it doesn’t actually deserve, carries the movie to the end line, which isn’t any simple job given the proliferation of messy subplots, from the reappearance of Honey’s abusive father to the provenance of the mysterious brunette, who seems to be French and within the pay of the pastor, whom she warns that “ze purple” — whoever they are — are nut fluctuate ’appy wiz ’im.
Mercifully, it’s throughout in below 90 minutes, however the ending — in addition to being, properly, simply foolish — raises extra questions than it satisfactorily solutions. Does this imply there’s going to be a 3rd film, successfully making this the second a part of a loosely linked trilogy? Honey, don’t even give it some thought.
Title: Honey Don’t!
Pageant: Cannes (Competitors)
Director: Ethan Coen
Screenwriter: Ethan Coen, Tricia Cooke
Solid: Margaret Qualley, Aubrey Plaza, Chris Evans, Lera Abova
Distributor: Focus Options
Working time: 1 hr 30 minutes
