Ethan Coen has spent most of his career making films with his brother Joel, and they have won several Oscars together. In recent years, Joel and Ethan Coen have been doing solo work. Joel made the very austere and stuffy The Tragedy of Macbeth, while Ethan has now written two films with his wife Tricia Cooke, also the Coen’s longtime editor. Coen and Cooke’s first was last year’s Drive Away Dolls, an absurdist queer neo-noir road comedy starring Margaret Qualley and Geraldine Viswanathan. That movie didn’t work for me, but I left enthusiastic to see whatever the duo would do next, having expressed interest in making a trilogy of disconnected lesbian B-movies. The second is Honey, Don’t!, which premiered earlier this year at the Cannes Film Festival to a mixed response. And maybe they’ll get it right next time. 

Honey O’Donahue (Qualley) is a private detective in Bakersfield, California. She’s an old soul, she uses a Rolodex instead of a computer and drives a slick 1970s convertible. She’s scheduled to meet with a potential client who turns up dead before their appointment. Detective Marty (Charlie Day) tells her it was an accident, but she’s not buying it. There’s a connection to sketchy preacher Drew (Chris Evans), but she can’t pinpoint specifics. She enlists the help of cop and sometimes lover MG (Aubrey Plaza) to try to get to the bottom of things.

There are about ten different storylines in Honey, Don’t!, and none of them come together. On paper, I should love this movie. I love the Coen Brothers’ work, I love everyone in this cast, I love this kind of goofy genre movie, and I entered the theater ready to have fun with this. And for a while, I was along for the ride.  I see no reason why a queer neo-noir crime comedy with this level of talent shouldn’t work. And while I kept waiting for the pieces to fit together, it became more clear to me that they never would. And it’s so frustrating because the film almost works so many times, and Coen can’t quite figure out how to make it all come together. 

Margaret Qualley simply could not be better here. The role almost seems like it was written for her. There’s such specificity to her character and so many details that she’s clearly having fun with. Her way with an offhand remark or a raised eyebrow proves she’s got that thing, that true movie star thing and I’d be very surprised if she got through the next decade without winning an Oscar. But it ain’t gonna be for this. If this script was on her side, I could easily imagine this film leading to a series of procedural-ish films (or a streaming television series) with Qualley’s character solving mysteries like Jessica Fletcher. This would’ve fit perfectly and I mourn what we could’ve had.

Qualley’s chemistry with Aubrey Plaza seems forced and not really organic, and I didn’t find myself really rooting for this couple. Plaza’s character feels kind of underwritten and I feel like that’s the problem. Charlie Day is having fun as the detective who keeps hounding Honey to go on a date with him even though she’s clearly not into him or any man. Chris Evans is so much fun with the villain character type these days, and I really enjoyed what he was doing here. I would even argue the film could have used more of him. His performance here alongside his romantic lead performance in Celine Song’s Materialists suggests the actor still has plenty to offer audiences after leaving the Marvel universe. If only he’d stay away from the big budget streaming movies made without scripts, like Ghosted and Red One.

The filmmaking style on display here is strong. The establishment of this world is compelling and Ari Wegner’s cinematography is slick, and I’m not sure who’s responsible for designing the film’s opening credits, but they’re arguably the best part of the entire movie. The desert town of Bakersfield, California and the way it’s used gives the film a very vivid sense of place, and allows for some fun nods to the western genre. Carter Burwell’s score and sound design is very specific to the kind of story being told here. Also, the film is a lot more violent than I was expecting, so if you’ve got a weak stomach, you should go in knowing this. 

Ultimately, there is so much about Honey, Don’t! that I like so much, and it’s kind of heartbreaking when the actual script doesn’t live up to the film’s best elements. We’ve got a very game, very fun cast and great technical aspects, but a director who should know better at this point and a script that never knows how to stick the landing. But the real problem is that neither Coen brother can make the same caliber of film without the other. I remember saying this about Drive Away Dolls, but the same thing is true here. If you’ve ever seen that episode of The Golden Girls where our four leads are organizing a talent show and they see an audition for the Skarklevich brothers, a duo that juggles bowling ball pins. One shows up without the other, and does his audition anyway and throws the bowling pins at the wall (where the brother is supposed to stand) and he says to Dorothy ‘it’s better with my brother’. That’s this movie.