I Walked Out Of ‘Honey Don’t!’ Confused About Everything BUT My Sexuality
Movies don’t always spell themselves out for us, and their endings don’t always wrap up neatly in a bow. Sometimes they’re gnarled knots we need to untangle once we’ve left the allegory of the “movie theater” cave and we’ve had time to absorb and decipher its projected shadows.
All of that is to say, in a very poetic way, that I walked out of the theater, after dragging my girlfriend to see the latest installment of Ethan Coen and Tricia Cooke’s “Lesbian B-Movie Trilogy”, Honey Don’t!, feeling clueless about everything other than the fact that I am, most definitely, queer.
The Margaret Qualley and Aubrey Plaza starrer, had, undoubtedly, a lot to say, but like Coen’s 2007 Oscar winning film, No Country For Old Men, the devil is in the details. This is not a film you can sit back, watch passively, and fully absorb. It’s full of nuance and metaphor that can be interpreted in any number of ways, making a rewatch an absolute necessity.
Qualley plays the titular Honey O’Donahue, a private investigator looking into the death of a woman who contacted her for help but was found in a car wreck before she had a chance to attend their scheduled appointment.
A visit with the woman’s parents leads O’Donahue to a local church, where Reverend Drew, played by Chris Evans, has created a cult of personality that doubles as a sex and drug ring. Plaza plays MG Falcone, a local police officer who aids Honey on her quest for the truth, as the two bond over their shared lack of emotional availability.
Everyone can’t stop talking about the sex scenes
The press junket for the film has been playful, as anyone would expect from Plaza, or any film trying to court lesbian movie goers with such a big name pairing. Questions gravitate toward one scene in particular, where Honey sits next to MG and immediately initiates a sex act in the middle of a bar full of people.
The camera keeps anything explicit out of view while the two women attempt to maintain a conversation throughout the act. In interviews, Plaza shares that a crew member was crouching underneath the bar with a jar full of coconut oil, as if the tantalizing mechanics are the most interesting part of the scene.
While it’s certainly scandalous, the encounter isn’t completely gratuitous. We learn, very quickly, that these two women are on the same page about what they want from each other. While Honey uses her quick wit and passive aggressive quips to fend off unwanted sexual advances from men throughout the film, she gets right to the point with MG. Despite any connotations her name may evoke, there is nothing “precious” about Honey.
But this isn’t merely a case of a talented straight couple writing a really good lesbian scene—Cooke’s identity as both queer and a lesbian make her highly qualified to tackle the subject. Coen, meanwhile, identifies as straight, and the two have a nontraditional marriage where they live together and raise shared children, but each have separate partners.
For the rest of the intimate scenes, the two write in a level of nuance and realism that feels not only fitting, but necessary for 2025, and moves away from the more salacious scenes that are a dime a dozen in Hollywood. Every scene between these two women shows us something about who they are, how they approach sex, their sexualities, and emotional connection (or a lack thereof).
“Probably die in a small town…”
Placing this portrayal of queerness smack dab in the middle of Bakersfield, California is a bold and pointed choice providing the backbone to support the film’s many themes. Bakersfield itself becomes a main character, with the stylistic credits at the beginning of the film immersing us fully in its milieu—a place where time stands still and the aesthetics are temporally ambiguous.
If not for a clarifying moment where one of Honey’s clients wipes down a chair with a disinfecting wipe, explaining that COVID is still “around”, we likely wouldn’t have a clear grasp on what decade the film is situated in. An enigma of a character like the illusive Chère, clad in cheetah-print pants with matching bra, underwear, and headband, cruising atop a vespa looks like a 90s supermodel, while Honey’s office, Reverend Drew’s sacristy, and Mia Novotny’s bedroom could pass for 80s or 90s time capsules.
We are being shown a place that’s been left behind, as have the people who inhabit it. Novotny’s parents deliver a droning monologue while Honey searches Mia’s room for clues, recounting the car problems their daughter had shortly before her death, and explaining that their family is not the type of people who “ride the bus”.
This diatribe becomes the soundtrack accompanying visuals of Mia’s self-help book collection, and these two seemingly incongruous motifs converge to paint a picture of white poverty and desperation. Mia’s quest for self-improvement was likely driven by a desire to escape her surroundings, making her especially vulnerable to the kind of connection Reverend Drew peddles. Meanwhile, Mia’s mother finds consolation in comparison, placing their family as a step above the kind of poverty that requires one to use public transit.
Too many mouths to feed
Although Honey seems to have her life as put together as her wardrobe, this specific brand white poverty is much closer to home for her than we realize. She pays a visit to her sister, Heidi, whose small home is filled with the cacophony of Honey’s bickering nieces and nephews.
There are so many of them coming and going that we quickly lose count of how many there are. Honey broaches the subject with Heidi, who insists that she doesn’t want to be told how to parent, before Honey clarifies that she’s asking her sister just how many children she plans on parenting (if, in fact, she’s “planning” at all).
Honey’s niece, Corinne, goes missing shortly after a physical altercation with her boyfriend, and a disturbing encounter with an older man who turns out to be her grandfather, a man who beat Honey throughout her life. He shows up at Honey’s doorstep, and demands forgiveness and connection, guilt tripping her by saying she will regret turning him away when he is dead. As he begins to sob, it is apparent his motives are not altruistic, but entirely selfish.
Honey and MG swap daddy issue horror stories during pillow talk, illustrating how much emotional damage these two outwardly strong women carry around to this day. While both appear to have achieved a certain level of success that allows them to support themselves and live independently, neither has ever escaped Bakersfield or the trauma it represents.
The most we see, in terms of rebellion from Honey, is a scene where she violently confronts Corinne’s boyfriend in his trailer home, leaving him with a bloody nose before breaking his shotgun and slapping an “I have a vagina and I vote” bumper sticker over his MAGA one. This is another nod from Coen and Cooke that places the film squarely in the present, and makes us question what the film is trying to say about the state of this country.
So what does a cult have to do with all of this?
In this light, we could look at Reverend Drew as a stand in for Donald Trump, and the fervent Christian Nationalism that endorses him. Banners with Drew’s face hang on either side of his pulpit, where he delivers a rambling sermon with little substance and even less sense to the congregation. It parallels Trumps signature “weave” as he preaches the evils of just sitting there “like macaroni.”
Honey sees through Drew immediately, and asks him directly about the sexual underbelly of the church (she finds a leather harness hidden underneath Mia’s choir robe). In some ways, they meet on a level playing field, where Honey is equally guilty of using other people for her own sexual gratification. Still, she claims a sort of moral high ground as she fends off his advances during the exchange.
Drew is also portrayed as the leader of an incompetent drug ring, constantly playing defense with Chère, who repeatedly warns him that “the French” are not happy. She references the same unknown group as le peuple or “the people”, so we can read into this power dynamic as a threat from unknown European elites or as a metaphor for a French Revolution style bourgeoise up-rising. In the context of American politics, both options make for an interesting reading of the film.
In the end, Chère assassinates Drew after a final “pity-lay”, as punishment for the string of murders his hitmen are responsible for. While he’s not directly responsible for Mia’s death (stop here for **spoilers**), her membership in his church did make her a target. Then there is Little Joey’s overdose, Hector’s hit and run murder of a gay customer, Shuggie’s murder of Hector’s abuela, followed by Hector’s murder of Shuggie in self-defense, before Drew finally puts an end to the ordeal by killing Hector.
Stylistically, it delivers the kind of absurdity and violence that seems “on theme” for a B-Movie, but in the context of the fentanyl epidemic, immigration crackdown, and attack on gay rights, these victims deliver as much metaphor as they do thrill.
The BIG reveal
MG turns out to be a serial killer (I gave you a spoiler warning earlier). How do we find out? Because she lives in a creepy house with a pet parrot, and Honey finds a religious quote with a reference to a mission trip in her high school yearbook. It doesn’t all tie together seamlessly, but we learn that MG has Corinne captive, and she’s also responsible for Mia’s death.
MG targeted the two women because she found them to be “willing” victims of religious exploitation and domestic abuse. While we don’t get a satisfying explanation here, we can infer that MG likely experienced some kind of religious trauma, potentially tied to her queerness, triggering her descent into mental instability and violence.
In her confessional monologue, she accuses Honey of having “pussy remorse” now that she sees the state of MG’s childhood home, which she suggests is “too Bakersfield” to allow their sexual attraction to continue. She berates Honey for not doing anything “socially”, i.e. not creating any significant ripples or changes to their community (beyond those bumper stickers that is).
MG also reveals that her military father didn’t die in combat, MG stabbed him right in the kitchen, which is exactly what she does to Honey, before Honey fights back with a boiling hot tea kettle and then shoots her point blank in the forehead, killing her. Honey and Corinne are saved, and MG is discovered to be responsible for the murder of a string of prostitutes in nearby towns.
The film ends with Honey and Chère both idling at a stoplight, where Honey attempts to pick her up, for quickie, before Chère has to catch a flight (back to France we assume?). Once again, Honey is drawn to a cold, hard killer, implying that she may have a type, or that her trauma is drawing her to reenact a very specific cycle all over again.
Where does that leave us?
Honey Don’t! is such a tough nut to crack because Coen and Cooke gave us so much to unpack and untangle, but as we look at all of the “impressions” the film leaves behind—its stark glimpses at poverty and emotional trauma, its metaphors for American politics and power, there’s no clear cut answer or resolution for these problems. This isn’t a didactic film, meant to teach or guide us with a moral message. Its ambiguity is intentional.
The town may be safer after Reverend Drew’s demise, but someone will likely fill his shoes with their own non-sensical sermons. Corinne may be saved for now, but raising that many children likely won’t get any easier for Heidi. Charlie Day’s Officer Marty will continue to represent an outdated and inefficient police force, and Honey will likely continue to exist, as she is—a queer woman in a town that’s been left behind, seemingly content with the status quo, her womanizing, and good cup of coffee.
The fleet of identical Bakersfield buses will continue to run along their routes, as they always have, because it takes much more than a string of shocking murders to shake up a community this set in its ways. That stasis, that immutability, may be the best answer this film offers us, or asks us to confront within ourselves, for better or for worse.
