The deal
Honey O’Donahue (Margaret Qualley) is a hard-drinking private detective in the parched town of Bakersfield, Calif., who likes the ladies but also likes her freedom too much to settle down. When a prospective client turns up dead in an apparent car crash, Honey decides to do some investigating.
She learns that victim Mia (Kara Petersen) was involved with a popular church led by the preening Reverend Drew Devlin (Chris Evans). He’s also fond of the ladies — especially his parishioners, with whom he spends his free time romping in bondage gear, giving new meaning to his teachings of Christian submission. When not thus engaged, the reverend also runs a drug ring. But his French suppliers, who rightly suspect him of being a buffoon, have sent in a hypercompetent fixer (Lera Abova), who prowls around in cheetah-patterned leggings and may or may not have something to do with Mia’s demise.
Frustrated by her police liaison (Charlie Day), Honey befriends acerbic cop MG Falcone (Aubrey Plaza), and soon the two of them are trauma bonding and getting hot and heavy. But will Honey’s professional and family travails derail the budding romance before they make it to a third date?
Will you like it?
In 1994, Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction made such an enormous splash in the indie film world that it inspired a decade of knockoffs. Since Tarantino already drew his inspiration from classic noir and spaghetti westerns, these movies often felt like copies of copies, and the recipe of quirky banter plus bloody violence gradually lost its subversive kick. After the millennium, this nameless subgenre petered out — except on the small screen, where shows such as “Breaking Bad,” “Better Call Saul” and “Fargo” brought new vigor and relevance to the clichés of neo-western crime thrillers.
Honey Don’t! proudly revives this movie tradition with a potentially bold twist: The cool-headed hot girls (a staple of the genre) are no longer interested in tough guys, or in guys at all. Unfortunately, however, this movie’s original contribution pretty much starts and ends with the opening credits, which artfully weave the names of cast and crew into the sun-baked, seamy urbanscape of Bakersfield (actually Albuquerque, N.M.).
Honey Don’t! certainly looks fun: The production design is top-notch, and the costumes are pure retro eye candy. Don’t bother to wonder how Honey, a twentysomething from a working-class background in the present day, can actually afford that wardrobe when she appears to spend most of her time trading quips with her assistant (Gabby Beans). Or why she teeters around crime scenes in scarlet heels rather than keeping a low profile, or why she tosses off phrases such as “hanky-panky” and “feather in my cap” (in the same sentence!) and responds to the question of whether she drinks with a deadpan “Heavily. It’s a point of pride.” All that is just noir cosplay, unmoored from history and plausibility, and Qualley has the strutting presence to pull it off.
But the movie starts to wobble when it delves into the actual mystery, which lacks the dense plotting and payoffs of good noir. Set piece after set piece introduces characters we don’t care about — many just stereotypes — only to kill them off in florid ways. Many threads go nowhere.
If The Big Lebowski was a shaggy-dog story that made us savor every rambling detour, Honey Don’t! is more of a road to nowhere. The satire of cultish Christianity stops at juvenile humor. The camera lingers way longer on Abova’s body than her character’s function in the narrative justifies. The eventual revelations feel half-baked rather than resonant. And Coen and Cooke too often use shallow, crowd-pleasing gestures to get us on Honey’s side, such as having her discipline a bad boyfriend and deface his MAGA bumper sticker for good measure.
If the duo had leaned further into the weirdness (and Honey’s very existence in a post-2020 world is weird), the movie might have had a gritty cult appeal. As it is, Honey Don’t! is fine for a late-summer diversion, but it feels like a collection of quirky gestures in search of a point.
If you like this, try…
Fargo (1996; Kanopy, MGM+, Pluto TV, Roku Channel, Tubi, YouTube Primetime, rentable): For neo-noir small-town oddity combined with a more compelling detective tale, you can’t do better than the Coens’ big Oscar winner — or, for that matter, the star-studded TV series it inspired (five seasons, 2014-24; Hulu, rentable).
Love Lies Bleeding (2024; HBO Max, Kanopy, YouTube Primetime, rentable): If you seek a lesbian noir with a retro feel, Rose Glass’ thriller, set in 1989 and starring Kristen Stewart and Katy O’Brian as her bodybuilder flame, has dreamy romanticism and sinewy authenticity.
A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night (2014; Kanopy, Kino Film Collection, rentable): Or if the haunting desert-town setting of Honey Don’t! appeals to you, try Ana Lili Amirpour’s one-of-a-kind arty feminist vampire film, which was actually shot in the vicinity of Bakersfield — but set in Iran.
This article appears in Aug 27 – Sep 2 2025.
Got something to say?
Send a letter to the editor and we'll publish your feedback in print!