Cannes Film Fest 2025: Ethan Coen’s “Honey Don’t!” Starring Margaret Qualley and Aubrey Plaza and

Aubrey Plaza Get Raunchy in Ethan Coen’s Detective Movie ‘Honey Don’t!

CANNES, FRANCE - MAY 23: Aubrey Plaza and Margaret Qualley attend the "Honey Don't!" red carpet at the 78th annual Cannes Film Festival at Palais des Festivals on May 23, 2025 in Cannes, France. (Photo by Tristan Fewings/Getty Images)
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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.”

“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.

“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 said 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.”

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