To understand why Ethan Coen should suddenly decide to stop working with his brother, Joel, to make a trilogy of lesbian B-movies, doesn’t require much of an investigation. The answer lies in his unorthodox marriage to Tricia Cooke. “She’s queer and sweet and I’m straight and stupid,” he told America’s ABC News.
As Cooke and Coen are by all accounts, the best of friends, they are an advertisement for taking the sexual element out of marriage. It’s another matter altogether as to whether they are ideal creative collaborators. They seem to have got hold of “quirky”, while Joel kept “drama”. They make lesbian noir-comedies while he made Macbeth.
Tricia and Ethan appear to be in complete agreement on one point: that Margaret Qualley is the sexiest woman in Hollywood nowadays. Qualley has starred in the first two instalments of this proposed trilogy, playing a reckless free spirit in Drive-Away Dolls (2024), and now a private detective in Honey Don’t!. With her striking, unusual looks, I’m tempted to say Qualley is the best reason for watching both these movies. It’s hard to think of a second-best reason.