US EditionMovie review: 'Honey Don't' offers light, sexy fun
- The neo-noir film 'Honey Don't!', co-written and directed by Ethan Coen and Tricia Cooke, opened in theaters on Friday, August 21, 2025, in Bakersfield, California.
- The film centers on private investigator Honey O'Donahue, played by Margaret Qualley, who investigates a suspicious vehicular death of a client named Mia Novotny, leading to a complex plot involving drugs and corruption.
- Reverend Drew Devlin, portrayed by Chris Evans, is a corrupt church leader entangled in local drug dealings and sexual manipulation, while Honey navigates tangential side quests including her troubled family and her romantic relationship with officer MG Falcone.
- The film delivers a mix of comedic, passionate, and gratuitous sexual scenes, includes gnarly violence such as a murder with a corkscrew, and runs under 90 minutes with an R rating for strong content and language.
- 'Honey Don't!' provides an entertaining yet somewhat disjointed caper that injects a queer sensibility into a Coen-esque crime story, suggesting Ethan Coen's evolving solo direction but yielding mixed narrative cohesion.
40 Articles
40 Articles
Honey Don’t! Is All Dressed Up With No Place to Go
As the eponymous heroine of Honey Don’t!, Margaret Qualley has a catch in her voice, a twinkle in her eye, and a bounce in her step: Her self-styled private eye, Honey O’Donoghue, is all about the legwork. The title of Ethan Coen’s pleasingly pulpy new comedy offers a cautionary imperative that goes unheeded by its namesake. As a spiritual descendant of female shamuses like Kinsey Millhone and V.I. Warshawski, the only way Honey knows is forward…
The Best Coen Brothers Movies, Definitively Ranked
For over 40 years and 20-plus (mostly) revered films, together and (lately) separately, no dudes abide quite like Joel and Ethan Coen. To mark the opening of Ethan's lesbian noir Honey Don't, we've ranked every Coen film—and if you disagree, that's just, like, your opinion, man.
MyCentralOregon.com
Margaret Qualley, Ethan Coen and Tricia Cooke on their new dark comedy, 'Honey Don't!'
Margaret Qualley stars as Honey O’Donahue in the new ‘Honey Don’t!’ (Karen Kuehn) Ethan Coen‘s latest film is the dark comedy Honey Don’t! Margaret Qualley stars as the titular Honey O’Donahue, a small-town private investigator who explores a series of strange deaths that are tied to a mysterious church. There’s much about the film that feels modern, as it is a dark comedy about a lesbian detective. But there’s also a lot about Honey Don’t!, inc…
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