HONEY BUNCH (TIFF 2025) – Review by Rachel West

Honey Bunch aims for a 1970s psychological comedic thriller, but its ambition far outweighs its execution. Writing and directing duo Madeleine Sims-Fewer and Dusty Mancinelli’s second feature is a muddled mess of style over substance.

Emerging from a coma after an accident, Diana (Grace Glowicki) grapples with memory loss, straining her marriage to Homer (Ben Petrie). Despite the challenges in her recovery, Homer remains supportive, enrolling her in an experimental treatment facility overseen by Farah (Kate Dickie). There, Diana will undergo sensory treatments designed to restore significant memory loss in patients with various memory-related conditions.

Unusually, Homer is permitted to stay with Diana while she’s in treatment, as is Joseph (Jason Isaacs), who accompanies his daughter, Josephina (India Brown). While Diana starts showing improvements, Josephina’s treatment is not as successful, displaying severe physical side effects that can’t seem to be quelled. As Diana’s memory returns, she begins to question whether her marriage to Homer was really as happy as it seemed.

One of the glaring problems of Honey Bunch is that it is a 1970s pastiche of much better films. While it might be paying homage to Don’t Look Now or The Stepford Wives, viewers are constantly reminded that this film isn’t as good as those films are. Even with the script’s attempts to add new and unusual angles, it’s tough to take on a subject that feels like it’s been done to death. The audience has seen this type of story before, even as recently as Olivia Wilde’s abysmal Don’t Worry Darling.

When the story begins to reveal the truth to Diana and the audience, the film goes off the rails. The film’s structure breaks apart if you think too hard about it, asking more questions than it answers. There are glaring red flags in Homer’s behaviour throughout, which Sims-Fewer and Mancinelli play into. He is the one in control of the situation and it is meant to put the audience on edge. But when it comes time to reveal his true nature, showing that Diana and viewers’ expectations have been wrong all along, it lands with a thud rather than a satisfying twist.

Complex ethical and moral conversations are cast aside in favour of genre elements in the final act. Honey Bunch half-heartedly leans into the grotesque and, bound by what are undoubtedly budget constraints, fails to pull the story together in any kind of satisfying or meaningful conclusion. It so wants to be a daring, stylish psychological thriller, but it stumbles at every turn.

Part of the problem is that neither of Honey Bunch’s leads is strong enough to carry the material. Flat and wooden, Glowicki and Petrie’s performances fail to anchor the story. Lacking any on-screen chemistry, it is baffling to discover that they are actually a real-life husband and wife. Their limitation is only further highlighted when Isaacs appears on screen. I have no idea what he is doing in the film, but Isaacs, collectively with co-stars Julian Richings, Brown, and Dickie make Honey Bunch bearable.

Cinematographer Adam Crosby, should also be commended for his visual style. It is the only consistent thing about Honey Bunch. From the moody secluded treatment facility to the forestscape and era-appropriate crash zooms, Crosby totally nails the period films he is trying to emulate. Similarly, composer Andrea Boccadoro’s score, although it can be obtrusive at times, effectively channels its inspiration.

Though there’s ambition and style here, Honey Bunch never finds its footing. For all its visual flair, the film collapses under the weight of its own ideas.

Honey Bunch screens as part of the Toronto International Film Festival, which runs from September 4 to 14, 2025.