Ethan Coen Delivers?

When Joel and Ethan Coen decided to split up to direct their own movies we weren’t really sure how that was going to work out for them.

In 2021, Joel released “The Tragedy of MacBeth” which was a very faithful Shakespeare adaptation, but one filled with these beautiful and sumptuous black and white images. It was not Coen-esque in the least bit.

Now we have Ethan, who is usually credited as the Coen writer, taking a crack at directing and I’ve had a really good feeling about this one. “Drive-Away Dolls, originally titled “Drive-Away Dykes,” was written by Ethan and his wife Tricia Cooke.

Oscar Nominated Cinematographer Ari Wegner (The Power of the Dog) is lensing Coen's solo debut which is said to be a road movie in the same vein as the Joel and Ethan’s 1987 classic “Raising Arizona.”

Footage from “Drive-Away Dolls” was screened yesterday at CinemaCon. Here’s The Playlist’s Gregory Ellwood whetting our appetites in describing what he saw:

The film that really got the audience’s attention, however, was Coen’s “Drive-Away Dolls.” Co-written with Cohen’s wife, Tricia Cooke, this comedy finds Jamie (Margaret Qualley) snatching her friend Marian (Geraldine Viswanathan) for a lesbian road trip from New York City to Tallahassee, Florida. Along the way they get in the crosshairs of some nefarious folks including one fellow played by Colman Domingo and meet up with a friend played by Beanie Feldstein who somehow makes their circumstances worse. While certainly, its own thing, the preview shown gave a little bit of “Raising Arizona” vibes. Oh, and it was also super-fun. Is it a movie that will get a lot of awards attention? It doesn’t seem like it, but it also feels like the most A24/Neon-esque film that Focus has released in years.

The cast assembled for Coen’s film is great: Margaret Qualley, Geraldine Viswanathan, Beanie Feldstein, Pedro Pascal, Colman Domingo, Bill Camp and Matt Damon.

Coen and Cooke initially wrote the screenplay in the mid-2000s, which is said to be a “Russ Meyer-inspired romp” that was initially supposed to be directed by Allison Anders (“Gas Food Lodging”).

It was announced 04.17.23 that “Drive-Away Dolls” will open on Sept. 22. Focus Features and Working Title are behind this comedy caper.