Ethan Coen’s raunchy, gory detective movie “Honey Don’t!,” starring Margaret Qualley, Aubrey Plaza and Chris Evans, premiered to a rowdy Cannes crowd at midnight on Friday. The film earned a six-minute standing ovation, with writer Tricia Cooke declaring: “More queer cinema all the time!”
“That’s a fun way to end the festival,” Coen said as he took the microphone and quieted the clapping crowd. “Oh, and short, for a movie that started after midnight. Very humane.”
Indeed, the 90-minute “Honey Don’t” didn’t begin unspooling until nearly 12:30 a.m., after a half-hour delay entering the Palais. But the Cannes crowd didn’t seem to mind the wait, cheering loudly for Coen, Qualley, Plaza and the rest of the team when they finally entered the theater, then clapping vigorously for every producer and distributor card before the movie began.
One audience member even yelled, “I love you Aubrey!” in a show of support for the star, for whom Cannes marked her first red carpet appearance after the death of her husband Jeff Baena in January.
Qualley’s husband, music producer Jack Antonoff, was also in attendance, encouraging the crowd to clap louder as she giggled during the ovation. As the credits rolled, it was revealed that Antonoff and Coen collaborated on three songs for the film that Qualley performed — one of which had a Lana Del Rey feel to it.
Qualley headlines “Honey Don’t!” as the small-town private detective Honey O’Donahue, who delves into a series of strange deaths tied to a mysterious church. Evans, who was not present at the Cannes premiere, gives an oversized comedic performance as the church’s charming but evil minister. Plaza plays a cop who Qualley has a passionate love affair with until things turn sour when her niece disappears. Charlie Day and Billy Eichner round out the supporting cast.
“Honey Don’t!” marks the second collaboration between Coen and Qualley, who teamed up last year for the road trip crime comedy “Drive-Away Dolls.” Both movies feature Coen in the director’s chair without brother Joel and scripts co-written by Ethan and his wife Tricia Cooke.
Qualley told i-D ahead of Cannes that she had to dial back her “natural Scooby-Doo” instincts in order to play Honey, who is “skillful, she’s smooth, she is slipping in and out undetected… I had to be a little more suave than I am, more mysterious. I tend to want to diffuse things before they even happen.”
“Honey Don’t!” already has distribution courtesy of Focus Features. The movie will open in U.S. theaters on Aug. 22.
