Bees Make Honey

This is one of those movie that's a little bit heartbreaking because, while it succeeds at some elements, it fails miserably at others. Visually the film is sumptuous, though a tad dark. The team behind it were meticulous when it came to the costumes, the make-up, the cinematography, the set decoration, lighting, and even the editing. Which begs the question of what went wrong... Basically, the movie is overacted and not well written. When it comes to the script, it seems like the writers were simply trying too hard, which carries through in the delivery. To be clear, I don't believe the actors failed to achieve the director's vision; the problem is that vision lacked anything even resembling subtlety. As the movie progresses you end up losing interest quickly because you cannot care about the characters because they aren't really characters so much as caricatures. Instead of fleshed out human beings, the story revolves around one-dimensional cartoon like people. Consequently, whether they live or die, whether or not they're guilty, whether or not they seem happy or sad affects the viewer very little. Put another way, there is simply no one in this movie you feel emotionally invested in. In the end, this film feels like a missed opportunity. If the people behind it had invested half as much time on the story as they did on its appearance, it could have been brilliant; instead, it's tedious.

The basic plot in Bees Make Honey is fairly routine - Honey (Alice Eve) is convinced that her husband was murdered at last year's Halloween party. To find the killer, she invites the exact same guests to this year's party. But she also invites a police detective to help her unmask a murderer.

It's not that I disliked Bees Make Honey, but it could have been so much better. My biggest issue was the lack of focus. I'm a sucker for a good mystery. But too often, director Jack Eve seemed to turn his attention to anything but the mystery. Give me clues, suspects, motives, etc. - that's what I want. I suppose that what it boils down to is that I wanted a different movie, one with a good old fashioned, drawing room style mystery. Instead, what a I got was a mystery buried under kitchy characters, crazy musical interludes, and bizarre scenes that seem to exist only to be bizarre (a Nazi doing line after line of coke, for example).

I will give Eve credit for ambition. Just a few minutes in and it's easy to see Eve and Bees Make Honey have style to burn. And the movie looks fantastic. Costuming, sets, and lighting are all amazing. Being set during a Halloween party helps create the fantastic imagery. And I was impressed with Eve's sister, Alice Eve, in the lead. She brought real life and energy to Honey. It's too bad her main co-star, Wilf Scolding, couldn't keep up.

5/10

This looks like an attempt at farce and absurdist comedy but is too confused and doesn't make sense, even in its own world. One moment it's trying to be Oscar Wilde and the next, Rocky Horror but for all the overacting and deliberately stilted language if fails. What it does have is engaging visual appeal; the costumes and sets are stunning, as is the lead, Alice Eve.

I decided to watch Bees Make Honey because of Jack Eve, Trevor Eve and Alice Eve! I thought the movie had a brilliant plot.

However, I also thought it was a little slow--at least at the beginning. Also, it was confusing because of the amount of flashbacks. Now the movie was anything but terrible.

I thought the movie was highly creative! I thought Alice Eve did a phenomenal job as Honey. Trevor also did a phenomenal job as the commissioner.

I thought in terms of writing Jack Eve did a brilliant job. I also think Jack did a phenomenal job directing the movie!

I'd still recommend others' to check the movie out too.

Poor sound quality, broken by frequent and confusing flashbacks, and spoiled by unnecessary and frivolous farts of profanity. Ten uninteresting minutes was about nine minutes more than I could endure.