Now add Honey

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Not recommended for under 13; Parental guidance recommended for 13 – 15 (includes nudity, drug and sexual references and some coarse language)

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This topic contains:

  • overall comments and recommendations
  • details of classification and consumer advice lines for Now add Honey
  • a review of Now add Honey completed by the Australian Council on Children and the Media (ACCM) on 9 November 2015.

Overall comments and recommendations

Children under 13 Not recommended due to drug use, sexual themes, nudity and some coarse language
Children 13-15 Parental guidance recommended due to drug use, sexual themes, nudity and some coarse language
Children 15 and over OK for this age group

About the movie

This section contains details about the movie, including its classification by the Australian Government Classification Board and the associated consumer advice lines. Other classification advice (OC) is provided where the Australian film classification is not available.

Name of movie: Now add Honey
Classification: M
Consumer advice lines: Nudity and coarse language
Length: 98 minutes

ACCM review

This review of the movie contains the following information:

A synopsis of the story

Honey (Lucy Fry) is a sixteen year old Hollywood child star. While she is in Australia on holiday, Honey’s mum Beth (Portia de Rossi) is arrested for smuggling drugs into the country and is sent to a rehab facility. Honey is forced to live with her Australian aunt Caroline (Robyn Butler). When Caroline’s life begins falling apart, Honey must learn how to live in the real world and take care of herself, and Caroline’s family breakdown helps her discover the importance of accepting herself.  

Themesinfo

Children and adolescents may react adversely at different ages to themes of crime, suicide, drug and alcohol dependence, death, serious illness, family breakdown, death or separation from a parent, animal distress or cruelty to animals, children as victims, natural disasters and racism. Occasionally reviews may also signal themes that some parents may simply wish to know about.

Drugs; crime; family breakdown; separation from a parent; sex and sexualisation; nudity

Use of violenceinfo

Research shows that children are at risk of learning that violence is an acceptable means of conflict resolution when violence is glamourised, performed by an attractive hero, successful, has few real life consequences, is set in a comic context and / or is mostly perpetrated by male characters with female victims, or by one race against another.

Repeated exposure to violent content can reinforce the message that violence is an acceptable means of conflict resolution. Repeated exposure also increases the risks that children will become desensitised to the use of violence in real life or develop an exaggerated view about the prevalence and likelihood of violence in their own world.

There is some violence in this movie including:

  • Beth pushes a trolley full of dishes into a member of the kitchen staff to try and escape arrest. She also holds a kitchen blow torch to the chef’s head.
  • Caroline smashes a pickaxe into the car of one of the paparazzi after he refuses to delete a photograph of her teenage daughter.
  • Beth injects the photographer taking nude pictures of Honey with a sedative and then head-butts him so he passes out.
  • Honey throws a vase at the bathroom mirror and the mirror smashes

Material that may scare or disturb children

Under fiveinfo

Children under five are most likely to be frightened by scary visual images, such as monsters, physical transformations.

In addition to the above-mentioned violent scenes, there are some scenes in this movie that could scare or disturb children under the age of five, including the following:

  • When Honey locks herself in the bathroom, Katie is concerned that she might cut herself with razor blades or overdose on pills.  
  • An emotionally confronting moment, is when Caroline learns that her husband got another women pregnant.
  • Beth is shown going through withdrawal symptoms from being in rehab. This may be confronting.
  • Katie’s fiancé fakes a seizure to break Beth out of rehab

Aged five to eightinfo

Children aged five to eight will also be frightened by scary visual images and will also be disturbed by depictions of the death of a parent, a child abandoned or separated from parents, children or animals being hurt or threatened and / or natural disasters.

Children in this age group are likely to be scared or disturbed by the above mentioned scenes

Aged eight to thirteeninfo

Children aged eight to thirteen are most likely to be frightened by realistic threats and dangers, violence or threat of violence and / or stories in which children are hurt or threatened.

Children in this age group may be scared or disturbed by the above mentioned scenes

Thirteen and overinfo

Children over the age of thirteen are most likely to be frightened by realistic physical harm or threats, molestation or sexual assault and / or threats from aliens or the occult.

Some children in this age group may be affected by the mention of suicide or Beth’s drug withdrawals, but are unlikely to be affected by the other scenes mentioned above.

Product placement

None of concern

Sexual references

There are some sexual references in this movie, including:

  • Katie and her fiancé are shown in bed together
  • Discussion about Caroline’s husband having sex with another woman
  • Beth tells Honey to push her breasts together for a photographer
  • Beth tells Caroline that “sex sells” for sixteen year old girls
  • Honey reveals that her boyfriend broke up with her because she wouldn’t have sex with him.

Nudity and sexual activity

There is some nudity and sexual activity in this movie, including:

  • Caroline’s youngest daughter watches Honey’s raunchy music video and begins to imitate the sexualised dance moves.
  • Honey kisses a boy
  • Beth is shown a picture of a women’s breasts in a nude photo shoot
  • Caroline’s breast pops out from her dress
  • A paparazzi takes a photograph of Caroline’s sixteen year old daughter in her underwear
  • Honey films a raunchy music video where she is wearing a bikini and men are licking her and rubbing corn all over her.
  • Honey attends a nude photo shoot, however, the audience is only shown her bottom.
  • Caroline, Katie and Katie’s fiancé strip down to their underwear to distract a photographer from Honey.
  • Katie’s fiancé shows his nude bottom

Use of substances

There is some use of substances in this movie, including:

  • Beth is shown taking pills. She is arrested for smuggling drugs into Australia and sent to rehab. In rehab, Beth suffers through withdrawals from the drugs.
  • Caroline’s husband suffers from panic attacks and is frequently shown taking herbal ‘rescue remedy’ drops when he is panicked or stressed.
  • Honey drinks alcohol and asks Caroline for a margarita
  • Caroline drinks the whole bottle of wine to calm down
  • Sebastian smokes and Caroline comments on this being unexpected for a chef.

Coarse language

There is some coarse language in this movie, including:

  • bullshit; shit; idiot

In a nutshell

Now add Honey is an Australian comedy that examines the taboos around nudity and considers the negative influence that child stars can have on their young fans. It raises interesting topics for discussion with teens, but because of drug use, sex themes, nudity and some coarse language, the film is not recommended for under 13s.  Parental guidance is recommended for 13 - 15 year olds.

The main messages from this movie are:

  • learn to accept your flaws
  • the importance of family
  • the dangers of sexualised media and the negative influence  of reckless teen stars 

Values in this movie that parents may wish to reinforce with their children include:

  • independence
  • responsibility

This movie could also give parents the opportunity to discuss with their children the importance of not taking nude photographs and to discuss with their children the influence that sexualised media, such as Honey’s raunchy music video, can have on young fans.