Honey Don’t! Review: So Much Wasted Potential

Margaret Qualley and Chris Evans shine in Ethan Coen’s Honey Don’t! but can’t save a messy, rarely funny screenplay.

I was sold on this endeavor from the jump, even if the last effort from this trio failed to impress me. The trailers showcased a classic detective story with lesbians at the center led by Qualley, Aubrey Plaza (Agatha All Along), and Chris Evans (of Materialists). While the narrative looked to be pretty straightforward with enough mystery to make you want to see what happens, Coen and Cooke’s final product is a jumbled mess that wastes the talent involved. 

There are some cast members who are up for this material and attempt to elevate Honey Don’t! into being a campy delight. Margaret Qualley turns in an excellent performance as Honey O’Donahue and winds up being one of the only things that makes you want to finish watching the film. She transforms into a modern noir era private detective and sells you on Honey’s humanity which drives her investigations. Honey is a hard drinker with a heart of gold, an inquisitive mind, and plenty of sex drive. Qualley knows exactly when to turn on each aspect of her character’s personality and makes her a joy to watch even as the film gets too messy.

Even with only a single scene with her sister, nieces, and nephews to go off of, you get a sense that Honey cares for them deeply and would do anything to keep her family safe. That’s because Qualley gives off this intense warmth with her smile while also being stern. Honey is also very direct, which makes several of our protagonist’s line deliveries hilarious. They may not all land, but that is by no means the fault of Qualley, who says her lines with the straightest, incredibly charming face. 

Chris Evans, like Qualley, is quite aware of what kind of film this is and perfectly plays into it as Reverend Drew Devlin, who leads this slightly cult-y church. Evans embodies the energy of someone that is the face of a megachurch. Not all megachurch leaders aren’t bad people, but the ones that I’m familiar with always seem to know when to turn on their smiles and create a very disarming presence. Evans nails this and that helps hide Reverend Drew’s more sinister side. That side of him is darkly hilarious, but much like with Honey, the Reverend has jokes that are more likely to make you roll your eyes than laugh.

Evans and Qualley’s best scene together is in the trailer and still managed to make me chuckle, which is a testament to its quality and their acting abilities. The two play off each other well and their dynamic is something that this script could have explored further. Audiences will come away from this remarking that Evans needs to do more comedies in addition to his dramatic roles. He has great comedic timing which allows him to make jokes work when they probably shouldn’t. 

In that same vein, Talia Ryder (Do Revenge) surprised me with her ability to make something out of a nothing character in Corinne, Honey’s niece. Corinne reminded me of Honey with this sort of rebellious streak but she is also very naive. More time could have been devoted to fleshing a bond between the two out as opposed to counting on Qualley to sell the emotional connection Honey has to her family. Even the most hard-boiled film detectives usually develop a believable dynamic as they drown themselves in work; Honey O’Donahue isn’t afforded that same luxury, as Honey Don’t! jumps from plot point to plot point without ever letting one sink in. Sure, some of these threads come back into play, but a number of them are straight up abandoned.

Honey spends a great deal of her time with police officer MG Falcone (Plaza) but their relationship, much like others in Honey Don’t! feels very surface level. Aubrey Plaza gives a career worst performance here, but to be fair to her, it’s not like Ethan Coen and Tricia Cooke gave the actress much to work with. This character serves her purpose, nothing more, and the single attempt to give her depth is honestly pitiful. It also doesn’t help that Honey and MG don’t have much chemistry. They may get hot and heavy, but Plaza and Qualley are very awkward together, which is strange given both have believably portrayed lesbian relationships before. 

This story has so many dropped plot threads that your head will spin. What starts off as an intriguing lesbian neo-noir mystery loses all steam thanks to so many abrupt plot changes. Many of them add little to our characters or the main mystery, which leaves Honey Don’t! feeling like this bizarre collection of parts that never fully come together to create a complete feature. I’ll give the plot shifts a little credit though, they made it impossible to see where this film was going, so that’s something. Coen and Cooke build an interesting world with a dynamite lead and squander both.

For a comedy, even one as dark as this, I was shocked how little I laughed. Most of my chuckles were elicited when Qualley, Evans, or Ryder were on screen or from certain visual gags. Most of the energy that I felt actually came from the soundtrack. So many of these songs are groovy and could fit in multiple eras. Margaret Qualley even teams up with her husband Jack Antonoff to perform a couple songs under the name Lace Manhattan which are used in Honey Don’t!. One, called ODDWADD has an electro pop sound to it and wouldn’t sound out of place on the radio in our world. The other, In the Sun She Lies, gave off folk pop vibes and perfectly soundtracks a contemplating Honey as she drives. 

Though I do believe Honey Don’t! could find an audience that loves it for what it is, there were multiple points where I found myself asking who exactly the film was for. A running gag involves Charlie Day’s Detective Marty Metakawich continuing to pursue Honey even though the character makes it clear to him over and over that she is into women. While it was funny once, the gag coming up multiple times just served as a reminder to me that a man was behind the camera. Even with queer lesbian Tricia Cooke penning this script alongside her husband, Ethan Coen’s male gaze lingers. These steamy ish sex scenes move by so quickly and don’t add anything to the story or deepen bonds between characters. There is no tact to them and it seems they are only here to elicit brief cheers before we move on.

Part of me believes that Cooke wants the sex depicted to be empowering, but they aren’t creative, lasting, or important enough to have that sort of impact. Coen on the other hand has no idea how to film such intimate moments even with his wife there as a guide. Viewers see naked bodies and lovemaking that feels overly choreographed as opposed to authentic. The most honest part of the sex featured in this film would be the aftermath of what happens in the bedroom. 

Honey Don’t! wastes the efforts of Margaret Qualley and Chris Evans with a script that feels like it was smashed together with little regard for character development or logic. Worst of all, this supposed comedy isn’t all that funny either. Ethan Coen and Tricia Cooke seem to have the ability to create unique worlds and characters, but their “lesbian B-movie trilogy” films fall utterly flat narratively. It’s a shame, because this should’ve at least been campy enough for me to have fun with it; perhaps others will, and maybe it will grow on me over time. For now though, I cannot help but think about how Margaret Qualley and the very cool character of Honey O’Donahue deserved better. 

Honey Don’t! will be released in US theatres on August 22, 2025 and in UK & Irish cinemas on September 5.