Written by Zoe Crombie

It can be a little unsettling when members of acclaimed groups and duos decide to go solo. On the one hand you can luck out with post Destiny’s Child Beyonce – on the other, you might end up with the short-lived sitcom Joey. In this light, the Coen Brothers deciding to go their separate ways for assorted film projects led many to worry if the talent behind No Country for Old Men and The Big Lebowski lay solely with Joel or Ethan – thankfully, now that we’ve had both the sumptuously dark Tragedy of Macbeth and the topic of today’s newsletter, we know that each brother has a distinct and impressive voice.

Co-written with his wife Tricia Cooke, Ethan Coen’s Drive Away Dolls is a fun B-movie pastiche that suggests he may be the brother behind the effervescent yet edgy humour of movies like Burn After Reading and O Brother, Where Art Thou? Following a pair of lesbians on a road trip across late 90s America who get caught up in a murder, this isn’t a film that takes itself too seriously, and this tone is bolstered by some wonderfully hammy performances from actors like Margaret Qualley, Beanie Feldstein, and Pedro Pascal.

If Joel is the yin of the Coen brothers, providing the darker depths of their collaborative works, Ethan is surely the yang, with Drive Away Dolls demonstrating the surreal, hilarious lightness of earlier films untethered from Joel’s more serious outlook. If you’re looking for a lively, outrageous time at the movies with a female focus, Ethan Coen provides.

Drive-Away Dolls runs from 29th March - 4th April

Tickets & Showtimes: https://dukeslancaster.org/wha...