Reporting from the sun-drenched French Riviera, our Cannes critic and correspondent Shannon Cotter catches Honey Don’t! on the big screen.
The second of Tricia Cooke and Ethan Coen’s self-proclaimed “lesbian B-movie trilogy” offered a fun, energetic punch to this year’s Cannes Film Festival.
Honey Don’t! sets the stage with a blaring title sequence of Americana-style imagery: movie theatres, church billboards, and dingy little streets where one can easily visualise tumbleweeds blowing. Indeed, the duo’s crime caper is a re-enactment of popular pulp movies, but with a queer twist. The town of Bakersfield stands under the high-heeled shoes of smooth-talking detective Honey O’Donahue (Margaret Qualley), a femme lesbian with a smoky drawl who feels like she’s fresh out of another era. After the death of a young woman who sought out Honey’s services the day before her demise, Honey digs deeper into the town’s dirty secrets, only to find threats rising in the form of sleazy church (AKA cult) leader Reverend Drew (Chris Evans), as well as personal foes closer to home.
The great thing about Honey Don’t! is its pure, unabashed fun. The actors practically chew up each line with relish, highlighting the wit of Cooke and Coen’s dialogue. (“I think my boyfriend is seeing someone,” a weeping Billy Eichner tells Honey. “I’m sure he is,” she replies in a deadpan tone.) This commitment to camp unlocks a host of great performances, from bumbling dimwit Marty (Charlie Day) to reserved, sexy cop MG (Aubrey Plaza), who strikes up a relationship with Honey.
Probably in one of the quirkier roles of his more career, Evans infuses the perfect blend of cockiness and charisma, reminiscent of his turns in Knives Out and Not Another Teen Movie. The political connections don’t need much probing: Reverend Drew preaches love and piousness while engaging in proclivities often frowned upon by churchgoers (his place of worship is appropriately called the Four-Way Church). He also has a reserved parking space.
Reverend Drew’s focus on his younger, female followers draws Honey’s concern, especially as she looks out for her teenage niece, Corinne (Talia Ryder, under heavy alternative make-up). A real sense of connection is visible in the dynamic between Honey and her sister, Heidi (Kristen Connolly), a single mum trying to get her kids through Bakersfield safe and fed. Honey clearly longs for something bigger and better outside of Bakersfield, but the urge to protect her loved ones puts that idea on pause – even when surrounded by the buffoonish male characters who struggle with the idea of a woman not being interested in men. (“I like girls,” Honey reminds Metakawich. “You always say that,” he chortles during several of his blundering attempts to ask her out.)
At least for Honey, there is the excitement of sex, crimes and beating people up. Coen takes a no-holds-barred approach to well-crafted fight scenes, with Honey in particular getting a satisfying tussle towards the end of the film. Despite a host of strong performances, it is Qualley’s film. Widening her repertoire of characters, she carries the grit and weight of this glamorous small-town detective (with excellent costume design by Peggy Schnitzer). It is easy to see why so many characters in Bakersfield are moved or intimidated by her magnetism. In Cooke and Coen’s attempt to propel a female lead in the noir genre, they do so excellently in giving Qualley the freedom to take full control. You begin to wish more films like this were made.
In its tight ninety-minute runtime, a few threads are left underscored, such as a family reunion and a mysterious French agent of Reverend Drew (Lera Abova), who exudes a coolness that may be magnified by her secrecy. Yet the whole film runs on a buzz, with diverging plot threads still interweaving towards the conclusion. Cooke and Coen’s ability to treat this spin on the genre so casually is what makes it feel so natural: the queer love affairs, the wit of the punchlines, the sunbaked hardness of Bakersfield glazing across the screen. Whether this trilogy will get its third film is up in the air (“We said trilogy because it’s dumb if you say you are doing two of them, but there are no definite plans to do a third,” Coen told The Hollywood Reporter in May 2025) – but my fingers are certainly crossed.
Honey Don’t! premiered in Cannes on Tuesday, 24th May 2025.
