HONEY DON’T! is Margaret Qualley lesbian crime comedy #2 from Ethan Coen and his wife/editor Tricia Cooke. When the first one, DRIVE-AWAY DOLLS came out last year we learned that 1) though only Coen is credited as director he considers it a directing team 2) don’t worry, she’s a lesbian (they have an unusual marriage) 3) they can make a really funny movie even if it’s not as slick as FARGO and shit.

It took me a couple weeks to get to this one, and the reviews I saw were dire, but I figured I’d still get some laughs from it. Instead I came out honestly confused what those people were talking about. It’s not just not as bad as they say, it’s straight up a good movie. To my surprise it’s more serious than the last one, still funny and absurd but an actual neo-noir/pulp/crime type deal, like a detective novel my cool building manager two apartments ago would’ve left in the free book box in the laundry room. It has fewer big laughs than DOLLS, but by design, and I think it’s much better directed – nicer looking, more seamless in its storytelling, more interesting balance of tone. I’d have to guess that what people are rejecting is not some messiness or failure but just the shaggy quality of this style of crime story where a bunch of stuff happens by accident or coincidence and nobody fully figures out what’s going on or achieves what they’re trying to (which is, of course, part of its world view and one of the main things that’s fun about it).

Like many detective stories (and other genres) a big part of the appeal here is just how cool this character is. Qualley (THE NICE GUYS)’s Honey O’Donahue is a witty, sexually forward lesbian p.i., her accent seemingly of another era, her outfits and “click clackin heels” standing out at crime scenes and the strip mall where she has her office. She hates guns (but knows how to shoot them), has a cool assistant named Spider (Gabby Beans, THE HARBINGER) who seems to need more job duties, and she’s the cool aunt to a gaggle of uncontrollable kids including teenage Corinne (Talia Ryder, WEST SIDE STORY), who comes to her for help. Everyone should have a tough lesbian aunt to save them from their abusive boyfriend and working the drive-thru at Weiner Heaven. Literally and figuratively, I want to say.

Corrine goes missing in what seems like a side plot at first but is the main thing Honey cares about. Before that she’s looking into the supposed car accident death of a not-quite client (a woman who had called her, but she doesn’t know why). We know it’s connected to a sleazy church called the Four-Way Temple, who we also know are trafficking unspecified drugs – the supply is repeatedly referred to in one scene as the church’s “matter,” because Coen always knows how to choose the funniest and unlikeliest words for any situation.

Chris Evans (KNIVES OUT, THE GRAY MAN) continues his funny bad guy streak as cult leader and regional crime boss Reverend Drew Devlin, who preaches between two giant portraits of himself (one with sunglasses), has a weird vendetta against macaroni for “just sitting there,” and convinces female congregants (often in pairs) that having sex with him is part of God’s plan. Evans’ southern-ish accent isn’t the most convincing, but he’s great at being the arrogant boss getting more and more condescending to his goons (all fairly likable) as things get increasingly out of hand.

Meanwhile Honey starts dating MG Falcone (Wow Platinum and EMILY THE CRIMINAL herself Aubrey Plaza), a cop who works the evidence desk. I thought their meeting at a bar had the most overflowing sexual tension possible until I realized what was actually going on (spoiler) (fingering). I hope those people who complain about movies being too chaste these days are appreciating Cooke’s addition of girl-on-girl lust and casual sex toy usage to the Coen canon. I love the part where Honey casually cleans her beads and dildos in the sink and puts them on the dish rack.

Man, this movie opens perfectly for my tastes – not with any jokes, but a quiet scene with a mysterious and fashionable French lady (Lera Abova, ANNA) calmly attending to the fatal car crash before taking a skinny dip and driving away on her scooter, just one of the many intriguing characters populating the movie. Then there’s a really outstanding credits sequence set to a Brittany Howard cover of a song I won’t name because I enjoyed realizing what it was saying about the Bakersfield, California scenery. An opening that fires us in to bounce like a pinball through the many colorful lanes and bumpers of the story.

In the tradition of Murder, She Wrote or some shit I wondered how Honey could run a private detective business in such a barren town, but then there turns out to be a hell of a body count within a few days, most of the people connected but their deaths happening by random fuckup. There is some cartoonish violence but not in a detached sort of way – there is some upsetting death both of innocents and of characters I would’ve been happy to see more of. And there’s something serious going on at the middle of this – the primary theme is women surviving abuse, bonding over their similar traumas, but also clashing over how to deal with it. There’s not a clear answer. When Honey’s estranged father (Kale Browne, BLOODFIST IV, HALF PAST DEAD 2) wants back in her life he’s alternately scary and pathetic. There’s definitely stuff to chew on there, I’m not sure what to make of it yet.

Just one more small thing I’ll mention is how much I like when Honey stops by a little bar, empty because it’s still the afternoon, and she banters with Lena Hall (THE GRADUATES), who’s playing bluesy piano the whole time, creating atmosphere, scoring her own scene. (Qualley also sings three songs on the soundtrack, which is produced by her husband Jack Antonoff.) I thought that lady Elle was the bartender until Don Swayze (DEATH RING) came out to talk to Honey and make me think god damn, have we been undervaluing Don Swayze? I hope he becomes a Coen regular. (Speaking of that, Bill Camp has a really good voice cameo.)

I think HONEY DON’T! is very cinematic, but I also found myself kinda wishing it was a show just so I’d get to see Honey and Spider on another mystery. And we’d have more of Marty Metakawich (Charlie Day, PACIFIC RIM), the homicide detective who apparently doesn’t understand that Honey isn’t joking every time she has to tell him “I like girls,” and her sister Heidi (Kristen Connolly, THE CABIN IN THE WOODS) and all the nieces and nephews, and hopefully Don Swayze and his piano bar.

I guess I shouldn’t care if other people appreciate this or not, but I want to note that it’s a pretty standard occurrence for Coen movies to initially befuddle people. I remember even the first time I saw THE BIG LEBOWSKI I thought it was good not great. Then I kept thinking about it and saw it three more times before it left theaters. I’m not saying HONEY DON’T! is THE BIG LEBOWSKI (though it did remind me of it in some ways). I don’t think many people will watch it a thousand times, it’s meant to be a trifle, a casual little pulp tale with some absurdity and funny dialogue. And it’s a good one of those. I’m pretty its reputation will turn around sooner rather than later, and if not at least I’ll be rewatching it on occasion and grumbling about it.