Format: Streaming video from NetFlix on Fire!
Someone needs to tell me what the hell happened to Ethan Coen. I consider myself a fan of the Coen Brothers. I’m not any kind of superfan—I haven’t seen their entire catalog, but I’ve seen more than I haven’t. When the Coens decided to separate artistically for a bit, Joel made The Tragedy of Macbeth, a film that earned three Oscar nominations. Ethan Coen made Drive-Away Dolls and then Honey Don’t, which are the two lowest-rated movies of his career. Like I said, I haven’t seen everything attached to Ethan Coen’s name, but I certainly understand why Honey Don’t sits under everything else of his I’ve seen, and in fact below pretty much everything he’s directed.
Honey Don’t was written by Coen with his wife, Tricia Cooke. It’s their second writing collaboration, and also the second in a proposed “lesbian B-movie trilogy.” Since neither of the two movies in the trilogy have been well-received, it does bring up the question of whether or not this will be completed.
We’re going to follow private detective Honey O’Donohue (Margaret Qualley) in what feels like it’s supposed to be a neo-noir tinged with a surprising amount of sex for a movie that runs under 90 minutes including the credits. A woman that contacted her for her services is found dead from a car accident, and we witness a woman named Chère (Lera Abova) find the wreck and steal a ring off the dead woman’s hand. Investigating the crash leads Honey to the woman’s involvement in a church where the reverend (Chris Evans) has “fellowship” (read: sex) with the women of the church. And, it turns out the reverend is also working in the drug trade.
Meanwhile, Honey hooks up with a police officer named MG (Aubrey Plaza), and her niece Corinne (Talia Ryder) goes missing after she is scared by a creepy old man at a bus stop. How, oh how, will all of these different cases connect? We know they are going to, because that’s the rule for noir, whether it be traditional or neo.
The answer to that is “not very well.” Any good noir works because all of the various elements of the plot weave together by the end to give us a cohesive and coherent story. The Coens (and perhaps this was the influence of Joel since there are so many problems here) know how to write a noir--The Big Lebowski is essentially a comedy noir and they started their careers with Blood Simple, which is purely a noir.
That’s not what we have here with Honey Don’t. What we have is a collection of plot points that are very loosely connected to each other and that are finally tied together in a very unsatisfying conclusion that genuinely appears to be reached by chance, and things all come together entirely because the plot demands it, not because they were designed that way in the first place. Honey Don’t commits the worst sin that a movie can commit. It’s not bad, it’s not boring: it’s lazy.
And that laziness permeates the entire film. Worried that the audience might not care enough to keep watching? Let’s have Margaret Qualley and Aubrey Plaza have sex. Getting bored again? Here’s Chris Evans having a threesome.
I genuinely don’t get it. Ethan Coen clearly has been involved with great movies in the past. But it’s interesting if you look at the movies that are listed as being directed by Ethan Coen versus those decorated by his brother. With a couple of exceptions, their best movies are either credited to both of them or are credited specifically to Joel. Has he always been the one driving the duo?
Look, I’m someone who will always support the Coens and will defend the vast majority of their films in front of anyone, even some of the films that don’t tend to get as much love (like The Hudsucker Proxy). Since that is the case, I’ll certainly give Ethan Coen another try or two (I still need to see Drive-Away Dolls at the very least). He’s earned that. But if what he’s doing is as slap-dash and tired as Honey Don’t, he’s not going to get endless chances from me.
Why to watch Honey Don’t: If you’re down for lesbian nudity, this is here for ya.
Why not to watch: Ethan Coen’s slow slide into mediocrity.
