Jason Bailey
The break-up of Joel and Ethan Coen is something of an unparalleled event in contemporary film culture; filmmaking teams have split apart, to be sure, even their comrades in the movie-making brother trenches (like the Safdies and Farrellys). But no one has done it so deep into their shared, storied careers, after assembling a filmography so overwhelmingly impressive, so full of modern classics, that no one can even agree on their best.
And yet, at an age when both men could’ve just retired, or continued to coast together, they basically started over. Joel has proven the more cautious of the two, so far only releasing his 2021 adaptation of Shakespeare’s The Tragedy of Macbeth — a clever method of eliding potential criticism of his gifts as a solo writer. Ethan has been comparatively prolific, releasing the lightweight documentary Jerry Lee Lewis: Trouble in Mind and two narrative features, last year’s Drive-Away Dolls and the new Honey Don’t!
It is fair to say that the duo are not doing their best work separately. What’s more compelling is exactly why — why Ethan hasn’t been able to replicate the high quality of his collaborations with Joel, even when working in similar milieus and similar styles; these two films, with their fast-talking dames, cheerful vulgarity, twisty crime plots, and juicy supporting characters could’ve very well been Coen Brothers pictures… if they were just a little smarter and a little funnier.
The screenplay, which (like Dolls) Coen wrote with his partner Tricia Cooke, features Dolls star Margaret Qualley as Honey O’Donahue, a private investigator with a wood-paneled office in one of those mini-malls that time forgot. In centering her, and the frequently baffling investigation she becomes immersed in, Coen and Cooke are deliberately throwing back to the ‘70s detective movies – Long Goodbye, Hickey & Boggs, Night Moves, The Big Fix – which were themselves post-modern riffs, making this (like Inherent Vice before it) a post-post modern riff. (Lest the Long Goodbye influence isn’t subtextually clear, they give us a scene where a golden tabby cat is eating on a kitchen counter in the background.)
It’s the kind of one-damn-thing-after-another, twisty, knotty narrative that fits in a Chandler homage; this might be the closest thing Coen’s done to Big Lebowski, at least in terms of plotting. And Qualley is a good anchor for it — cast the wrong actor in one of these things and the whole thing will bog down as they strain to figure things out in the center of the frame. Qualley, on the other hand, has a way of approaching every situation quizzically, coming into scenes sideways, quickly realizing she’s the smartest person in the room, and keeping her cards close to her vest. That skill, and her Dolls demonstrations of adroitness with Coen’s rat-tat-tat dialogue, make her an ideal leading lady, though centering her in these lesser vehicles sorta feels like the injustice of Emma Stone not showing up in Woody Allen movies until he’d sunk to the likes of Irrational Man and You Will Meet a Tall, Dark Stranger.
Aubrey Plaza is another welcome addition, and as with the best of her recent performances, she uses her baggage in her favor; we think we know who she is when she first appears, complimenting Qualley on her “click-clackin’ heels,” but there’s real darkness under the deadpan. (Bonus: their chemistry is electric, and the hard cut to Qualley doing the “dishes” after their first sexual encounter provides the picture’s biggest laugh.) As a horny, scheming local evangelist, Chris Evans is a hoot, all sleazy self-satisfaction. And Don Swayze (yes, Patrick’s brother), a longtime familiar face in the straight-to-video scene, has a brief but memorable bit as one of the most important characters in a story like this: the observant bartender.
Coen and Cooke know how to set up a comic sequence (and how to build dread, as she draws in deeper). But the dialogue exchanges are missing that certain, special, Coen something, the screwball zing of their best comedies. And as a director, Coen has trouble navigating the tonal shifts that used to come so naturally; there are a pair of bloodbaths in the back half that are so jarringly grisly that they throw everything out of whack.
I suppose it’s commendable that Coen isn’t trying to just do the same old thing with his “solo” projects (the phrase seems inaccurate; he’s the sole director, but they’re clearly borne of a sensibility shared with Cooke). Despite the surface similarities, he’s not making Joel-less Coen pictures; these movies, with their outsized supporting characters, cheerful sexuality, and unapologetic ogling, are closer to Russ Meyer than Joel-and-Ethan, more SuperVixens than Fargo. And that’s fine; there are worse ways to spend a couple of hours than watching Margaret Qualley getting laid, cracking wise, and being a tall drink of water.
But one can’t help but wonder if the time and energy he’s spending making big, broad, goofy sexy comedies could be spent instead on another Inside Llewyn Davis or No Country for Old Men. It’s probably an unfair question, but the mind does wander to it, time and again.
C+
“Honey Don’t!” is in theaters this weekend.
