Brothers Ethan and Joel Coen have made 18 motion pictures collectively, beginning with 1984’s Blood Easy to 2018’s The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, creating an iconic filmography of black comedy masterpieces.
Then, with out warning or clarification, they cut up up. Joel made The Tragedy of Macbeth (2021), an austere, black-and-white Shakespeare adaptation that felt as far-off from a Coen Brothers film as potential. Ethan’s first solo undertaking, in distinction, was Drive-Away Dolls, the story of two lesbian mates (Geraldine Viswanathan and Margaret Qualley) on the run from dim-bulb thugs after a McGuffinian bag of loot. The queer spin on the Coen-esque crime caper comedy comes largely from Coen’s co-writer, Tricia Cooke, his longtime editor and spouse of 32 years. Cooke is lesbian; the couple have an unconventional marriage the place each have separate companions outdoors their marriage. Coen and Cooke have adopted up Drive-Away Dolls with Honey Don’t!, a nutty lesbian spin on a Raymond Carver movie noir, with Qualley as small-town PI Honey O’Donahue, Aubrey Plaza as her butch buddy MG and Chris Evans as a super-shady evangelist preacher.
Honey Don’t! could have its world premiere out of competitors in Cannes on Friday. Focus Options is bowing the movie within the U.S. on Aug. 22. The filmmakers spoke to The Hollywood Reporter about their “queer huge dumb film,” their want to carry again punctuation in film titles and Ethan’s subsequent movie (with Joel!).
So that is the second movie in — what are you calling it — your lesbian B film trilogy?
Ethan Coen It could be correct that we’ve referred to as it that. Time will inform whether or not it really is that, I imply, whether or not it involves move. We mentioned trilogy as a result of it’s dumb in case you say you might be doing two of them, however there aren’t any particular plans to do a 3rd. Name it no matter you need.
Name it a duology then. What was the beginning of this entire undertaking?
Tricia Cooke I don’t know. I feel we each actually like style motion pictures, B motion pictures, and we have been at some extent in our lives the place we had children, and Ethan was doing quite a lot of work on his personal, and so the way in which that we spend time collectively was simply by writing. We wrote Drive-Away Dykes [aka Drive-Away Dolls] first, within the early 2000s, and after we’d written one, we’re like, “Nicely, we must always write one other, but it surely must be a detective film.” And we simply sort of went from there. It was only a manner for us to spend time collectively. I actually by no means thought something would come of them besides us writing them and the children discovering them at some point and being like: “Oh, that is what Mother and Dad did of their spare time.”
Coen I’d reply in another way. I’d have mentioned we noticed an underserved market. However no matter, each are appropriate.
What do you imply by “underserved market”?
Coen Homosexual, lesbian style motion pictures. They’re not a well-known factor, actually not this type. You understand, the lesbian detective film. You don’t see quite a lot of these.
Cooke These style B motion pictures, they’re all very straight, or primarily straight. So we thought: Let’s flip them on their head just a little. As a result of quite a lot of queer cinema, particularly lesbian cinema, tends to get just a little heavy generally. We simply needed to do one thing that was sort of enjoyable and carefree and didn’t take itself too severely.
Coen There’s additionally a possibility to offend individuals. I’m Jewish, and Joel and I’ve had some Jewish characters in our motion pictures that offended Jews. And Trish being homosexual, it opened up a complete new avenue. We might offend homosexual individuals.
Cooke He mentioned that, not me.
With this movie, like Drive-Away Dolls, you’ll be able to see echoes of your earlier movies, the crime caper comedies like Blood Easy and Elevating Arizona. Tricia, the place do you see your fingerprints? What makes this completely different from a “Coen Brothers” film?
Cooke Nicely, it’s a queer film. I add the gayness to it. Being a lesbian, I carry that to the writing course of, a sort of understanding of that world. In Drive-Away Dykes, that sort of lesbian bar world. And on this film, simply the dynamics between Honey and MG, a sort of butch femme understanding of these characters. Each time there’s one thing delicate, it’s normally as a result of I’ve needed to place it in there.
Coen And at any time when there’s one thing crass, that was me.
This movie is leisure, however is simply the very fact of doing a queer film right now a sort of political assertion? Does it land in another way now, within the midst of the second Trump administration?
Cooke You understand, I’ve thought of that, and I’m unsure anymore. It looks like there’s been an actual tradition shift in our nation since Trump was elected. On one hand, it’s speculated to be an enormous dumb film, which actually suits into the MAGA world. Nevertheless it’s a queer huge dumb film, so there is likely to be pushback. Perhaps that’s speculated to be off the file.
Coen No, I like that. It’s
complicated. “Queer huge dumb film” says all of it.
Cooke I imply, it’s received quite a lot of intercourse. There’s just a little commentary across the reverend character [played by Chris Evans] and the sort of cultlike world that exists there, which is just a little Trump-like, however not a lot.
Coen I do know why you’re asking. It’s an fascinating query. I simply really feel like I don’t know. Folks’s identities are so entrenched at this level that no person’s going to push it over, probably not. However once more, perhaps that’s straightforward for me to say.
How does your personal private relationship feed into your work? You guys are in an unconventional marriage, the place one is straight, one is queer, each with different companions. The way you suppose your your relationship has formed the work that you simply guys do collectively?
Coen I’ll provide the actually trustworthy reply: I don’t know. We’re probably not self-reflective individuals. I don’t actually know the way our identities have an effect on what we do. Actually it has to, however we don’t give it some thought.
Cooke Perhaps that’s as a result of we do have such an unconventional relationship, even unconventional within the queer world, proper? So poking just a little enjoyable on the queer world is perhaps my manner of claiming I’m an outsider in all these worlds — within the straight world, within the queer world. It’s simply the character of our relationship.
About poking enjoyable, what do you suppose these movies carry to queer cinema that’s new?
Coen Nicely, like I discussed earlier than with among the Jewish characters I’ve executed in a number of situations, they don’t all the time must have dignity. The tiresome factor is when the minority individual needs to be some avatar of goodness. That’s simply crappy for drama. It’s anti good film.
Cooke We don’t put [our queer characters] on a pedestal. We simply allow them to be as crass or soiled or unhealthy as anybody can be.
Will there be a 3rd movie within the trilogy?
Cooke Nicely, we’ve a title: Go, Beavers!
Coen With a comma and an exclamation level. We like titles with punctuation marks in them. Honey Don’t! has the exclamation level. We made Hail, Caesar! with a comma and an exclamation level. Oh Brother, The place Artwork Thou? had a comma and a query mark. There’s not sufficient punctuation in titles. That’s the principle drawback with motion pictures these days, in my view.
Cooke We’ve received a couple of third of it written, however we’re each doing different issues. Ethan’s written a brand new film with Joel and I’m writing one thing with my daughter proper now.
So Ethan, you’re going to make one other film along with your brother?
Coen Oh yeah. I assume we’ll. We’ve written one thing. My god, it’s at the very least a 12 months in the past now we wrote one thing to do collectively. And we’ve an outdated factor that we’ve written. And perhaps we’ll write one thing new. However Joel is about to begin one thing, so we sort of received out of sync. However yeah, the reply is sure. We simply must form of get in sync once more, when that occurs.
What are you most happy with about this movie?
Coen The title sequence.
Cooke That was what we mentioned within the press notes. Then I mirrored, and I assumed, , I’m proud that we’re in a position to carry these homosexual and lesbian characters to life. However when it comes to the way in which it seems, the
title sequence was actually enjoyable as a result of we have been very hands-on with that, and it’s a guerrilla sort of filmmaking in a manner that the remainder of the film isn’t.
Coen Not solely have Tricia and I not executed it earlier than, however I haven’t executed it earlier than with Joel, both. It was simply enjoyable to do. It’s arduous to explain, but it surely was enjoyable to do. I additionally need to add in regards to the lesbian characters and this being for an underserved viewers. It’s, however on the similar time, it’s not only for that market. The intercourse scenes are sort of scorching, whether or not you’re a girl or not.
Cooke There are many several types of intercourse scenes, not simply between the 2 title characters. There’s simply a number of intercourse in it.
Coen And to not spoil something, however the straight intercourse is ridiculous.