Honey Don't review: Ethan Coen's black comedy refreshingly reverses gender roles

Soon enough, corpses start piling up, beginning with an odious gentleman who refuses to pay a drug dealer and then offers fellatio in exchange for narcotics. That Honey has been hired by the man’s boyfriend to spy on him further embroils her in the case, which gets increasingly fractious when the dealer winds up “PFD” (“Pretty f***ing dead”) after a fight that involves a knife, a steaming hot iron and a lot of broken teeth.

All roads soon point to Reverend Drew. It seems religious figures here are as corrupt as the politicians that populated Drive-Away Dolls, with Drew blessed with a habit of coercing the female members of his flock towards sexual encounters with him. Yes, if anything is funny in Honey Don’t!, it’s watching Evans – aka Marvel’s pure-hearted Captain America – in a threesome with two ladies wearing leather harnesses.

Like the leads in Drive-Away Dolls, Honey is also attracted to the fairer sex. "I like girls," she repeatedly tells Marty (Charlie Day), the dozy cop she trades info with who is forever trying to ask her out on a date. It’s not long before she’s hitting on MJ Falcone (Aubrey Plaza), who works in the basement of the police department. The sex is casual and semi-explicit (though Coen and Cooke don’t hold back from showing Honey washing clean her collection of sex toys afterwards).

Keeping a similar tone to Drive-Away Dolls, this is a throwaway B movie that twists on the fact that its LGBTQ+ friendly, something of a switch around for celluloid crime yarns (unless you count the Wachowskis’ 1996 lesbian noir Bound). Certainly, there’s an anti-Republican vibe here; a MAGA (Make America Great Again) bumper sticker gets covered with the phrase: “I have a vagina and I vote.”

More reviews from the Cannes Film Festival:

• Die My Love review: Jennifer Lawrence is superb in this absorbing and quietly devastating drama
• The Phoenician Scheme review: Wes Anderson's latest is a quaint tale of industrial espionage
• Eddington review: Ari Aster's latest is thematically rich but overlong

Largely, the dialogue is sharp, especially coming out of Qualley’s mouth. “Do you drink?” she’s asked. “Heavily. It’s a point of pride,” comes her quick-witted reply. But if there’s anything to criticise, it’s how abruptly the film concludes, with an ending that doesn’t feel as fleshed out as it might. The Cooke-Coen screenplay could’ve done with further exploring machinations of the Four-Way Temple church; instead – like the film’s rapid-fire sexual encounters – it’s a quickie.

While the film lacks the sparks of genius that Ethan has often shown with brother Joel, it’s still cunningly cast. There are some nice supporting turns, especially from Gabby Beans as Honey’s try-hard secretary and Talia Ryder as the detective’s niece, who goes missing, another piece in this messy puzzle. Qualley does her best as the private eye, even if she’d arguably be better cast as a femme fatale. But perhaps that’s the point of Honey Don’t! This is a world where gender roles are reversed, refreshingly so.

Check out more of our Film coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what's on. For more from the biggest stars in TV, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.