[7] In the remote and undeveloped eastern Black Sea region, a six-year-old boy (Yusuf) wanders through the woods searching for his lost father, trying to make sense of his life.

[5] The three main characters (Yusuf and his parents) are all fairly taciturn, and the soundtrack is filled out with the sounds of the forest and the creatures that live there.

[10] Honey is the last installment of Kaplanoğlu's autobiographical "Yusuf Trilogy", named after the central character, preceded by Egg (Yumurta, 2007) and Milk (Süt, 2008).

[17] Metacritic assigned the film a weighted average score of 70 out of 100, based on 5 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".

[18] Katja Nicodemus (Die Zeit) praised the film as an "existential narrative about the world view of a child, about loss and mourning".

She picks out the calm rhythm and the landscape photography: "In Bal, you believe you can smell the rain drizzling on the boy on his way to school".