Honey Don't

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