Honey Don't

Ihr Auftreten lässt Privatdetektivin Honey O’Donahue wie die Heldin eines Howard-Hawks-Films der 1940er Jahre wirken. Allein dass sie offen lesbisch lebt, verortet sie in der Gegenwart. Honey ermittelt ziemlich erfolglos rund um den seltsamen Tod einer Klientin – während sich die kriminellen Elemente im kalifornischen Bakersfield, allen voran ein sexsüchtiger Prediger mit einer French Connection ins Drogenmilieu, auch ohne Honeys Zutun auf drastische Weise gegenseitig ins Jenseits befördern. Was Regisseur Coen in seiner schwarzen Krimikomödie ebenso typisch lakonisch erzählt wie die Episoden aus Honeys eher anstrengendem Privatleben. (Lars Penning)

Watching HONEY DON’T is like seeing forty years of history—film and otherwise—unfold before your eyes. Directed by Ethan Coen and co-written with editor and partner Tricia Cooke, a longtime collaborator of the brothers before they went their separate ways, this pulpy yarn fully embraces the tradition of neo-noirs set in broad daylight. It possesses the smarts that come from a profound knowledge of the genre, plus an infinite curiosity about everything that film culture means in this day and age. Margaret Qualley is Honey, a hot, anachronistic private eye who wears incredible suits, drives a convertible, refuses to have a mobile phone or computer and fucks any woman she fancies. She steps into a crime network and tries to dismantle it, as she gets tied with up a prospective client who is found dead, a handsome, yet dirty priest, a bunch of drug dealers, hired guns, French organised crime hoodlums and a deadpan lover cop played by Aubrey Plaza. Fast and smart, it taps into the way attention works today: wall-to-wall high intensity that can take many different forms. It is also a portrait of Bakersfield, in the south Californian interior: a scorching, dry, dusty and dark city where anything but good can happen. (Lucía Salas)

Ethan Coen (Auswahl): BLOOD SIMPLE (1984, KO-REGIE), RAISING ARIZONA (1987, KO-REGIE), MILLER’S CROSSING (1990, KO-REGIE), BARTON FINK (1991, KO-REGIE), FARGO (1996, KO-REGIE), THE BIG LEBOWSKI (1998, KO-REGIE), O BROTHER, WHERE ART THOU? (2000, KO-REGIE), THE MAN WHO WASN’T THERE (2001, KO-REGIE), NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN (2007, KO-REGIE), A SERIOUS MAN (2009, KO-REGIE), TRUE GRIT (2010, KO-REGIE), INSIDE LLEWYN DAVIS (2013, KO-REGIE), HAIL, CAESAR! (2016, KO-REGIE), THE BALLAD OF BUSTER SCRUGGS (2018, KO-REGIE), DRIVE-AWAY DOLLS (2024)