Honey Baby

 (2003)

by Tuna

Honey Baby (2003) is an unusual love story, a retelling of the Greek myth of Orpheus and Eurydice, made in Finland in English.

Henry Thomas (ET) plays a former singing star now struggling to make a living in Germany.  His agent offers him a tour of Russia. He at first declines, but when his girlfriend kicks him out, and his partner sells their bar at a loss, he ends up accepting. To add insult to injury, he must drive his own car. On the road, he runs into Finnish superstar Irina Bjorklund, who is playing a mystery woman who has escaped from her wedding - a wedding that Henry was to have performed for. She steals his car, so he hitches to his first gig, and when he arrives, his guitar is there, his car is parked outside, and she has introduced herself as his road manager. When he finishes, he discovers that she also collected the fee. He finds her in a club, but he is soon drugged, and wakes up in her apartment. They eventually agree to travel together, but Henry doesn't yet know that her jilted would-be husband is a European mob boss, and is after her. When his sleazy manager cancels his contract and fills his remaining gigs with an impersonator, Henry decides that traveling with Irina is as good an occupation as any.

As they fall in love he nicknames her "Honey Baby" because she was raised on an apiary. They lose the car and guitar when the bad guys close in, but hop a train, and end up joining a small circus, where she becomes the snake dancer. After the circus, things go downhill for a while but, unlike Orpheus and Eurydice, they manage a happy ending.

The similarities to the Greek myth are obvious. Our hero plays a Gibson electric acoustic, not a lyre, she loses her snake dancing job because she kissed the snake, making the circus owner's wife jealous rather than being bitten to death by snakes, and the mob boss (Helmut Berger) doubles for Hades and Persephone.

This is a good film in English with known performers, and a decent plot - the best film version I have seen of the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice. It is essentially a road movie with a classical theme and likable characters, and it stays fresh and unpredictable from start to finish. Both leads become sympathetic characters, although they take some time to get there, and the plot kept me guessing - a good thing in my opinion. The icing on the cake is the travelogue aspect of the film, which offers a look at Halle/Leipzig, Riga, Kaliningrad, Murmask, St. Petersburg and Karelia, and presents those locations in a far more intimate way than in most movies.

 

NUDITY REPORT

  • Irina Bjorklund: breasts, while on the bottom in a sex scene.

THE CRITICS AND ACADEMIES

  Variety
 

   Variety praised some aspects of it, especially Bjorklund and the cinematographer, but strongly criticized the amount of screen time afforded to the off-key singing of Henry Thomas

 
 
 

THE BOX OFFICE

Unknown. Budget approximately $3 million.

THE PEOPLE

   
6.0 IMDB summary (of 10)
   

 

Our Grade:

If you are not familiar with our grading system, you need to read the explanation, because the grading is not linear. For example, by our definition, a C is solid and a C+ is a VERY good movie. There are very few Bs and As. Based on our descriptive system, this film is at least a:

C

 

Honey Baby DVD Irina Bjorklund Widescreen (2003) Region 2.

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