The Coen brothers continue on their solo artist paths, and while Joel is taking his sweet time with a follow-up to his first solo effort, 2021’s The Tragedy of Macbeth, Ethan is now onto his second solo project, a neo-noir called Honey Don’t. It follows Drive Away Dolls and is the second installment in a planned trilogy of B-movie “lezploitation” films from Coen and his creative partner (and wife), Tricia Cooke.
Drive Away Dolls benefits from viewing it through a B-movie lens, it makes some of the film’s conventions more acceptable, though the provocations aren’t nearly as provocative as Coen and Cooke think. Nothing in Drive Away Dolls is as smart, sly, or funny as the “No Dames” number in Hail, Caesar!. The Coen brothers do their best work together: discuss.
Honey Don’t! reunites Margaret Qualley with Coen and Cooke, though this time she stars as a private detective investigating a mysterious death connected to a shady church. Chris Evans plays the grifter/pastor, and it’s hard to see a smarmy guy preaching from a morally dubious pulpit and not immediately think of The Righteous Gemstones, a comparison that does no one in the Honey Don’t! trailer any favors. Still, it’s a fun little murder mystery for the noir and/or queer crowd. I like that on paper but Drive Away Dolls did not build confidence in Coen and Cooke as a creative team. That film needed, like, three more drafts of the script, at least.
But the cast of Honey Don’t! is promising. Besides Qualley and Evans, the film stars Aubrey Plaza, Charlie Day, Talia Ryder, Billy Eichner, and Don Swayze. The Coens never have a problem casting, together or separate. And I do love that Chris Evans continues his streak of playing absolute sh-theels, making the most of his freedom from Marvel (at least until they inevitably rope him back in). And Margaret Qualley is always great, a nepo baby who beats the label by delivering consistently excellent performances. As I’ve said, when you have the goods, no one cares who your parents are.
Also, the highlight of Drive Away Dolls is the chemistry of Qualley and co-star Geraldine Viswanathan. Honey Don’t! shows similar promise with the pairing of Qualley and Aubrey Plaza. Margaret Qualley is so compelling and sexy, she’d have chemistry with a doorknob. Same goes for Aubrey Plaza. Putting those two on screen together to make eyes at each other and flirt over dead bodies is brilliant. It does half the work just by having those two share the screen. If this movie DOESN’T deliver on that promise, I might cry. This casting is too good to waste.