The trailer of the movie "Sai Bova"/Tulip Media
The brothers Joel and Ethan Cohen make up one of the finest duos in the history of contemporary cinema.
They worked together from the 1980s until the end of the previous decade, when they temporarily dissolved their partnership, which gave birth to huge contemporary classics such as "Fargo", "Harsh Land" and "A Good Jew".
Behind the family and creative partnership between them are hidden many more such significant connections, for example with their regular and wonderful photographer Roger Deakins.
In some cases, the other staff members are also family related to them.
The two often work with the wonderful actress Frances McDormand, who also happens to be Joel's partner.
Ethan, for his part, in partnership with Trisha Cook, an editor who participated in editing many of the brothers' films.
Cohen and Cook are married and have children together, but she describes herself as a lesbian, and both have extramarital partnerships.
We tell about this arrangement not for juicy gossip, but because it is relevant to the work. The two are currently signed to a new film called "Sai Bova", which in English is called "Drive-Away Dolls" and its original name was "Drive-Away Dykes", because its heroines are Lesbians and their sexual identity is a central part of the plot.
Original name: "Drive-Away Dykes".
From "Sai Bova"/Tulip Media
Cook and Cohen wrote the screenplay together.
Officially, only he is signed as director, but in interviews they said that in fact the creative process was completely shared.
Since, unfortunately, it turns out that "Sai Bova" is one of the terrible movies of the year, the meaning is that there are two culprits here, and not just one culprit.
The two started working on the project in the late nineties, and it takes place in 1999.
Margaret Cavali plays a young woman with a Texan accent who lives in Florida and travels to Florida.
Her partner in the adventure is Marian, played by Geraldine Visvanthian, a young woman who has not had sex for several years and prefers to spend her time reading books by Henry James, but the journey will rekindle her desire.
To finance the trip, the two transfer a car from one rental agency to another, and in the best cinematic tradition, it turns out that the trunk has a particularly sensitive package, and some are willing to kill them to get their hands on it.
Although the film lasts less than an hour and a half, it features a rich collection of supporting characters, including a lesbian policewoman played by Binny Feldstein, a conservative senator played by Matt Damon, and an obscure character played by Pedro Pascal.
There is also a gangster played by Coleman Domingo, and there are psychedelic passages in which Miley Cyrus appears.
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You can't see the forest from too many stars.
From "Sai Bova"/Tulip Media
The casting therefore includes some of the hottest names of the moment - we see Cavali and Pascal everywhere in recent years, and Domingo is nominated for an Oscar this year for "Rustin".
Otherwise, one might suspect that Cohen and Cook not only conceived the film in 1999, but also directed it then, and it was lost and only now came out.
More than that, sometimes one can suspect that he is a curiosity from the 1980s, the kind we would sometimes see by chance in the late hours of the night on the movie channel.
It's hard to believe we're saying this about a movie involving Ethan Cohen, but "Sai Bubba" is very inferior - the acting performances are terrible, especially Cavalli with her heavy, fake Texan accent;
The production values are poor;
The directing and editing work is as arbitrary as almost everything else here, and even the short length of the film is not in its favor.
He only exaggerates how rushed and casual everything seems, and how the plot moves and characters are nothing more than drafts and chapter heads.
It's clear what the film is trying to do: take the men, who have always been the protagonists of this type of action film, and place them on the sidelines, while the lesbians are revealed to be the protagonists of the action, and all this without any objecting to them - there are a lot of sex scenes here, but Cohen and Cook do not present them in a cheap way or exploitative, and avoid showing frontal nudity.
The only organ shown to us is the male genital organ, and it is also in the form of a dildo, and even then the women use it for their own pleasure.
Like a movie we used to see on the movie channel in the nineties.
From "Sai Bova"/Tulip Media
The attempt to take trite genres such as the travel film and the action comedy and paint them in new and queer shades is of course interesting, but "Sai Bova" executes it in a sloppy, even childish way because it is rude, enthusiastic and trying.
Maybe in 1999 the script was innovative and brilliant.
Today, we have works like "Seven Baby" and "Bottoms" by the American-Jewish-bisexual creator Emma Seligman, who gave her characters a rich, complete and deep world of dilemmas, struggles, social connections and cultural references.
None of that is present in this film, which takes its unrefined messages and hammers them over the head with phallic symbols.
Even the little subtext here we get with a spoon full of cheap symbolism.
drive slowly
From "Sai Bova"/Tulip Media
Cohen and Cook said it was a second-rate movie - pure, unpretentious fun.
I never believed directors who say such a thing, but come on.
The problem is that even if it is treated in this way, "Sai Bova" is really not fun.
It's not funny, not exciting, not fun and not immersive, and if it weren't for the names behind it, it's hard to believe that it would have even made it to the cinemas.
Since the end of the joint work, Joel Cohen directed alone "The Tragedy of Macbeth", which was also difficult to watch.
Ethan, for his part, directed a docu that did not receive a particular resonance and also this failure.
It would be an understatement to say that working separately does not benefit them, so it was gratifying to hear that they are about to join forces and once again create together.
Will their next film rise to the level of the classics they created in the past?
Not sure, but it will probably be better than Sai Bova.
More on the same topic:
The Cohen brothers
Margaret Cavali
Pedro Pascal
Matt Damon
Miley Cyrus