The Ethan Coen crime farce is good, but would it have been better with both siblings? Can filmmakers ever really claim to have solo projects? There are well-established dynamics to a musician splitting off from a group to make an album of their own, even when it requires a new set of supporting musicians. But while there are certain would-be purists who will insist that, say, Wes Anderson’s movies have never been the same since he stopped co-writing them with Owen Wilson, the particularly collaborative nature of filmmaking makes that line of thought sound more like conspiracy-mongering. Wilson may not have written a movie with Anderson since The Royal Tenenbaums, but he was sure on set for a lot of The Life Aquatic and The Darjeeling Limited, and Anderson has worked with so many other co-writers, recurring actors and other steady collaborators it would be difficult to describe even his most singularly Anderson-voiced movies (which is to say, all of them) as more “solo” than others.
There is an exception, though, that doubles as one of the hottest trends of the 2020s: filmmaking siblings splitting up their dual act. Josh and Benny Safie (Uncut Gems) are pursuing their own, separate projects, with Josh planning to reteam with Adam Sandler while Benny (who also acts) planning to direct another movie starring Dwayne Johnson. Lana Wachowski directed The Matrix Resurrections on her own, and her sister Lily recently announced her own debut as a solo filmmaker. The sibling duo furthest along on their divergent paths, however, are Joel and Ethan Coen. They haven’t made a movie together since 2018’s The Ballad of Buster Scruggs; Joel’s The Tragedy of Macbeth came out in 2021, and now Ethan’s Drive-Away Dolls, the first of at least two projects written with his wife Tricia Cooke, is hitting theaters. The divisions between the two films are fascinating and, at times, almost suspiciously neat...