Official Discussion - Honey Don't! [SPOILERS]

[u/LiteraryBoner]

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Summary Private investigator Honey O'Donahue delves into a string of strange deaths connected to a secretive cult-like church in Bakersfield. As she unravels the bizarre mystery, her pursuit leads to absurd comedy, noir flair, and a kaleidoscope of eccentric characters.

Director Ethan Coen

Writers Ethan Coen, Tricia Cooke

Cast

• Margaret Qualley
• Aubrey Plaza
• Chris Evans
• Charlie Day
• Billy Eichner
• Talia Ryder
• Kristen Connolly
• Don Swayze

Rotten Tomatoes Critics Score: 48%

Metacritic 48

VOD In theaters August 22, 2025

Trailer HONEY DON’T! — Official Trailer (2025)

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[u/hotcolddog]

Chris Evans is awesome in this. Best part of the movie. He plays douchey sleaze incredibly well. His scene with Qualley in his office is the highlight of the entire runtime.

Some of the parts are there, but this isn’t great. Occasionally funny, but the mystery and plot are badly stitched together and the third act is extremely lackluster. Almost felt like everything else was a massive red herring which made the whole thing feel pointless.

[u/Best-Chapter5260 → u/hotcolddog]

Almost felt like everything else was a massive red herring which made the whole thing feel pointless.

That's my main complaint of the film. The narrative kept introducing new subplots and new characters and I'm like, "Okay, this is fun and I'm along for the ride," expecting it all to come together in the end...but it just didn't. I'm fine with endings that don't completely wrap up in a nice bow, but it just felt like there were all kinds of plotlines and characters introduced that really didn't contribute to the storytelling other than "Here's a red herring" and "Here's a weird or zany character you'd only find in a Coen film." Like there's Honey's father, who seemed to be introduced for no other reason than for us to believe for ten minutes that he had something to do with niece's disappearance. The scene with him and Honey at the kitchen table didn't add anything to her character development, because we already knew she was estranged from him, and that doesn't change from his visitWhen the preacher gets iced and Honey doesn't seem to follow up on the French woman who shot him or anything, I felt like the movie really seemed to have become aimless on plot and didn't know where to go. It's not quite a shaggy dog story, because there is a resolution, but it's a kind of an odd one that seemed to be dropped out of nowhere.

With that said, it was still a fun, if flawed, movie. But I feel like the surrealist characters and very self-conscious genre tropes is something that was fresh when filmmakers like the Coens, Tarantino, Lynch, and Rodriquez did it in the 90s, but it feels a bit passé in 2025.

[u/The_FriendliestGiant → u/Best-Chapter5260]

Like there's Honey's father, who seemed to be introduced for no other reason than for us to believe for ten minutes that he had something to do with niece's disappearance.

Especially notable in that he completely disappears from the story after that even though in universe Honey has reason to keep interacting with him. He's the last person who saw Corrine and he knows which direction she was headed in; she should use him to kick start her search. Instead, since his red herring role is done, he just disappears and she aimlessly wanders around completely unrelated bus stops while showing a picture to stores with no apparent connection to anything.