Honey Don't! | Full Movie | Movies Anywhere

Cooke and Coen’s ability to treat this spin on the genre so casually is what makes it feel so natural: the queer love affairs, the wit of the punchlines, the sunbaked hardness of Bakersfield glazing across the screen.

Coen wrote Honey Don’t with his wife Tricia Cooke, and the film has the unfortunate air of two self-styled Cool Parents gatecrashing their mortified teenage daughter’s sleepover.

When the credits rolled, there was a smattering of muted applause and a hurried rush for the exit. The previous 90 minutes had drained all energy out of a crowd that wanted this to be a winner.

Despite the verve of the film, there’s no there there — just an exercise in quippy banter and witty violence that works well enough to remind you of better movies.

The overriding feeling you glean from Honey Don’t is that it’s an example of two formidable filmmakers working in a register that almost punkishly rejects the intricacy and breathtaking formal panache of their past work.