FRISKY BUSINESS

Margaret Qualley and Geraldine Viswanathan star as queer friends being chased by dumb male criminals in Drive-Away Dolls, a road movie/ romantic comedy/crime caper by husband-and-wife team Ethan Coen and Tricia Cooke. Total Film hitches a ride with the directors and stars to talk dark laughs, dim crims and dildos…

Ethan Coen and his wife Tricia Cooke are talking about having sex while other people are in the room. Not now, in their marriage, you understand – Total Film is not in the habit of prying into the intimate details of its interviewees’ relationships. But back in the day, in their youth.

‘Yes, I’ve certainly lived through something like that,’ says Cooke with an expression that falls somewhere between a grin and a grimace. ‘I had a roommate in college who liked to bring men home. We shared a room. You have to zone out and find a different place to be, intellectually.’ Coen is smirking. ‘I’m not gonna make it personal and tell you about… But yes, it’s everyone’s nightmare,’ he nods. ‘You don’t want to hear other people’s sex: “Oh my god. Let me crawl into a hole. Let me not be here.”’

A lot of us have been there. The late teenage years and early 20s is, for many, a time of discovery, but it’s also a time of financial low-to-no-income and shared rooms. College students will likely know all about having to put on headphones when an inebriated roommate crashes into the room in the gasping, grasping clutches of another.

‘I’ve pretended to be asleep when I wasn’t asleep,’ laughs Margaret Qualley. ‘You just try and sink into the bed. But I’ve never done the reverse!’

Now before you go thinking that your favourite magazine has lost the plot and just randomly started asking wildly inappropriate questions to famous people, it should be pointed out that Drive-Away Dolls, a crime caper by Coen and Cooke, is a riotous, sex-fuelled road movie that throws up just such a scenario. In it, queer BFFs Jamie (Qualley) and Marian (Geraldine Viswanathan) hit the highway from Philadelphia to Tallahassee. Naturally, there are bungling criminals on their tail – Ethan Coen and older brother Joel brought us Miller’s Crossing, Fargo and The Big Lebowski – but more on that later. For now, let’s concentrate on the romanticcomedy aspect, as the uptight Marian finds herself sharing motel rooms with free-spirited Jamie, who’s either pulling women and bringing them back, making out with a female soccer team or masturbating in the next bed.

‘I’ve done a lot of movies about penises,’ grins Viswanathan, whose Cat Person is about the horrors of dating, and whose breakthrough movie Blockers tracked three teenage girls trying to lose their virginity on prom night. ‘Someone was like, “Oh, but Ethan Coen, that’s more highbrow,”’ she says of landing Drive-Away Dolls. ‘I was like, “Actually no, there’s a lot of dildos.”

I guess that’s just my brand. It’s not intentional, it’s something I’ve just fallen into. And I don’t know how to feel about that!’

Qualley, meanwhile, starred as a free-love hippy in Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood, in Claire Denis’ sexually frank romantic thriller Stars at Noon, and in Yorgos Lanthimos’ feminist Frankenstein Poor Things, which put the bonk into bonkers. Going at it hammer and tongs on screen is no biggie for her, and was made less daunting still by the way the shagging in Drive-Away Dolls is played for titters rather than titillation.

‘I liked the way the humour is brought into the sexuality,’ she says. ‘Like that scene when Jamie’s in bed with the dildo. It’s just ridiculous! I’ve seen many a scene where you’ve just got some actress touching herself – I’ve done the scenes – but I’ve never seen an actress touching herself be the butt of the joke. I like this version of it. It’s not so serious, it’s not exploitative, it’s just… funny.’ An infectious laugh that can only be described as goofy erupts out of her. ‘It made it easier to play. It wasn’t some kind of vulnerable thing. It’s just funny.

So ridiculous. I’m reaching towards something that’s more in line with Chris Farley’s physical humour than the typical masturbation scene for a woman.’

CRIMINAL PURSUIT

It was Cooke, who’s been married to Coen for 34 years but identifies as queer, who came up with the title ‘Drive-Away Dykes’ some 20-odd years ago. Coen liked it, and together they wrote the script. Then put it in a drawer. Neither quite believed that they’d actually ever make it, and Ethan and Joel, of course, were doing their thing (which Cooke was a big part of – she’s worked with them on the edit of several of their movies, though the brothers’ screen credit always went to the pseudonymous Roderick Jaynes). And then it suddenly happened. Joel went solo to make 2021’s The Tragedy of Macbeth, and Ethan and Tricia opened that drawer.

‘Oh shit’ is how Cooke remembers the realisation that ‘Drive-Away Dykes’ – now retitled Drive-Away Dolls – was heading into production, while Ethan adds an ‘Oh fuck’ for good measure. It never gets any easier, he insists: ‘When you get the train going, you have to run like a motherfucker to keep up with it.’

‘I’VE DONE A LOT OF MOVIES ABOUT PENISES. I GUESS THAT’S JUST MY BRAND. IT’S NOT INTENTIONAL’

GERALDINE VISWANATHAN

Viswanathan and Qualley both auditioned… for the same part. ‘They said to audition for whichever one you connect to more,’ recalls Qualley, ‘and I guess I saw myself as more of a Marian. And I sent Ethan an email because I’m such a huge fan. He responded, “I was hoping that you would audition for Jamie, but oh well.” I was like, “What? No! I’ll just audition for Jamie!” He was like, “No, an artist knows what they’re best for.” I was like, “I don’t know anything, Ethan!”’

For the support roles, a roster of serious talent signed up. Beanie Feldstein is a hoot as a no-nonsense cop who Jamie breaks up with at the start of the movie – given her profession, you just know she’ll come back into the action when the criminals enter the picture – and Matt Damon, who starred in the Coens’ western True Grit, plays… well, let’s keep that under wraps, and just say he’s an important player in the twisty turny plot. Among the bad guys, meanwhile, are men of the moment Colman Domingo (Rustin, The Color Purple) and Pedro Pascal (The Last of Us, The Mandalorian). Said bad guys come into play when they go to pick up their drive-away vehicle in order to transport an important package to Florida, only to be told that our heroines have already collected the car. It’s a classic mix-up/twist of fate of the type that can be found in so many pulp crime novels or 40s and 50s film noirs. As M. Emmet Walsh’s sleazy PI wheezily narrates at the start of the Coen brothers’ debut, Blood Simple: ‘An’ the fact is, nothin’ comes with a guarantee. Now I don’t care if you’re the Pope of Rome, President of the United States or Man of the Year, somethin’ can all go wrong.’ And so Jamie and Marian find their tricky love lives further complicated by huffing heavies who are after a Halliburton case in the trunk of the car. It contains… again, we’ll keep that under wraps.

What makes it all such a delight is that Coen and Cooke don’t take any of it too seriously. Drive-Away Dolls affectionately embraces its B-movie nature. If it was to be compared to a Coen brothers’ movie, it’s closer to the propulsive zaniness of Raising Arizona or the breezy silliness of Burn After Reading than the formal rigour and thematic weight of No Country for Old Men. The Coens, and Cooke, adore the syncopated snap of the crime tales of Raymond Chandler, Dashiell Hammett and James M. Cain, and the brazen energy of the classic film noirs, which were often shot in two or three weeks, or even a few days. Likewise, the shoot of Drive-Away Dolls moved fast (‘Ethan does no takes,’ jokes Viswanathan. ‘We had the world’s shortest days on set. Ethan brings his crew from day dot, so there’s this camaraderie and shorthand between departments’) and the film is a little looser and scrappier than the Coen brothers’ movies. The B-side to a hit single, perhaps: recognisable but experimental.

Coen is discussing his love of noir pictures. ‘They’ve got that sense of fun. They’ve got their own energy and the finer points can’t interfere with the energy and don’t contribute to the energy,’ he muses before moving on to the authors of pulp fiction. ‘The writers you mentioned, despite what they’re talking about [being] pulpy stuff, they’re great stylists, as great as any writers you can name me in the 20th century. That’s good shit.’

‘We want to make movies that don’t take themselves too seriously,’ chimes in Cooke. ‘Movies that are just fun, or trashy, or raunchy. There are lots of serious movies out there…’

‘And then there are good movies!’ cuts in Ethan. A tongue-in-cheek marital spat ensues. ‘There are lots of great serious movies,’ says Cooke, to which Coen responds, ‘I’m serious, there’s something sublime when the movie is so much fun that it elevates to its own logic level. They’re all taking the Halliburton case really seriously. That’s as sublime as any serious movie. Better!’

So he prefers a cheap, quickie noir like Detour or Murder by Contract to the more sombre and grandiose crime pictures like The Godfather or Once Upon a Time in America?

‘The Godfather’s great,’ he concedes.

‘I wouldn’t denigrate those movies because I really like some of them.’ Cooke nods, saying, ‘I’m all for important films and even some moralising at times. All of the Kurosawa and Fellini [films] are great.’ Coen’s grinning again. ‘We’ll accept quality if you insist,’ he says.

Well, they don’t insist upon it from themselves. You might even say that Drive-Away Dolls is puerile. In the best possible way.

‘Did I gravitate towards the puerile?’ beams Coen. ‘That’s such a compliment, and I mean it. That’s the kinda movie I want to see, right? I mean, fucking-A, man. That’s what movies do, man. That’s what they’re good at.’

TALKING DIRTY

By all accounts, Drive-Away Dolls was as fun to make as it was to watch, with its two leads stressing what a laugh they had on set, and just how relaxed and amicable its creators were when it came to sharing their duties.

‘We liked kind of everybody,’ says Coen, bemusedly. ‘It was almost disgustingly amicable.’ He seems almost relieved when Cooke cuts in to point out, ‘We had a couple of fights in the cutting room.’ They grin at the memory.

So is there anything serious to take from this incredibly fun picture? There doesn’t have to be, of course, and who’s to say that making ’em laugh isn’t the most serious business of all? But… is there? Perhaps the fact that it isn’t hung up on representation with a capital R, that it doesn’t feel the need to be politically correct and to make its queer heroines perfect role models but instead lets them fumble and mess up, as we all do in life (though naturally, it’s the men who are dumb). Isn’t imperfection the best example of all?

‘There’s not much political correctness in this movie!’ chuckles Cooke. ‘And I would just say that perfect is boring. It’s not fun to watch anyone that does everything right. I certainly don’t do everything right. None of my friends do. I wouldn’t even know how to write a character like that.’

‘I THINK IT’S REALLY IMPORTANT TO PUT POSITIVE PORTRAITS OF SEX ON SCREEN’

TRICIA COOKE

‘I totally agree,’ says Coen. ‘Perfect is boring. You write characters, you want to make them alive. That means imperfect.’

‘In this day and age, it’s a little harder to make movies where you have people mess up, especially if they’re about a marginalised community, the queer community,’ continues Cooke. ‘But I’m queer and I don’t know anyone who’s perfect.’

She pauses, then changes lane to discuss another way in which the movie can be taken seriously. ‘I think sex can be fun and it should be a positive thing,’ she starts. ‘The more we embrace it and don’t fear sex… I think it’s really important to put positive portraits of sex on screen, so it’s not taboo and there’s not as much shame around it. What do you think, Eth?’

He nods his approval and makes an ‘ayuh’ noise straight out of Fargo. Cooke continues, crediting Qualley and Viswanathan. ‘They were game for anything, open to any wackadoodle thing we asked.’

‘You don’t see women that way, that much,’ says Qualley, whose mum, Andie MacDowell, similarly challenged taboos when she starred in Steven Soderbergh’s Sex, Lies and Videotape back in 1989. Drive-Away Dolls feels particularly refreshing at a time when much of Hollywood’s cinema is oddly asexual, its superheroes resembling action figures with no genitalia while nearly everyone else is seemingly wary of the subject in this age of #TimesUp and intimacy coaches.

‘Yeah, true,’ says Viswanathan. ‘If you look at the history of film, there’s been so many ebbs and flows in the freedom of sexuality. It’s weird watching old movies and thinking, “This is way more progressive than the stuff we’re making now.” So in that sense, I’m really happy to be a part of these movies that challenge those expectations and push boundaries, because it’s gotten…’ She weighs her words. ‘We’re clutching our pearls a lot.’

Cooke earlier spoke of accepting a little moralising in films, and Viswanathan feels that Drive-Away Dolls comes with a message of its own. ‘When I watch the movie, I think it’s about the importance of getting laid,’ she says. ‘Like, “Yeah, Marian just needed to get laid.”’

DRIVE-AWAY DOLLS OPENS IN CINEMAS ON 15 MARCH.