The Coen Brothers, namely Joel Coen and Ethan Coen, are an iconic filmmaking duo. They are credited with the making of some of the best movies like Raising Arizona and O Brother, Where Art Thou? The duo wrote and directed their first movie, Blood Simple, in 1984.
After decades of working together with his brother, Ethan Coen decided to take a break from making films to turn his attention to theater. However, he was not able to stay away from narrative storytelling for too long. In 2022, it was announced that he was directing a movie named Drive-Away Dolls, which he co-wrote with his wife Tricia Cooke. The movie is loosely based on the couple’s one-of-a-kind family setup.
Ethan Coen and Tricia Cooke’s Unique Family Setup
For those unversed, Ethan Coen‘s wife Tricia Cooke worked with the Coen Brothers as a film editor on seven of their movies up until 2001’s The Man Who Wasn’t There. In an interview with The Guardian, Cooke revealed that she had joined the team as an assistant editor for the movie Miller’s Crossing for the sole reason of visiting New Orleans. At the time, she did not know who the Coen Brothers were.
The younger of the Coen Brothers quickly hit it off with Cooke and asked her on a date. The only problem was: “I told him I was a lesbian.” Despite this, the two remained good friends for quite some time. Cooke said:
“We would hang out. We did a lot of reading together. And then years later, I was like: ‘This is silly. I kind of love this man.’”
So, the two married and had two children and made their relationship work, as Cooke put it. However, their marriage is not the traditional kind, and they have never tried to make it look that way. While Cooke identifies as queer and lesbian, Coen identifies as straight. They both have other partners who live in different parts of the same house, but this has not made them indifferent to each other as they all get together in the kitchen.
Drive-Away Dolls is Ethan Coen and Tricia Cooke’s Attempt to Introduce Their Family Setup to the Public
Drive-Away Dolls, released in February 2024, is a comedy road film. The film features two lesbian friends Jamie (Margaret Qualley) and Marian (Geraldine Vishwanathan) on a road trip to Florida, but find themselves in trouble when mobsters start chasing them for a briefcase that is in the spare tire compartment of their rental car.
The movie is a big shoutout to personal and s-xual freedom and raises questions about the repressive social values that can be seen on the billboards along the highways of the Republican American South.
Being in the public eye is new for Tricia Cooke, who has been out as a lesbian since she was 21. The development of this movie had begun in the 2000s but had to be shelved because back then, no one wanted to risk it by making such a woke movie. So, this is her and Coen’s attempt to publicly reveal their family setup now that people are much more open to such themes.
Drive-Away Dolls is in the cinemas right now.
