Drive-Away Dolls
Ethan Coen's "Drive-Away Dolls" is pro-queer, sex-positive and raucously funny.
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The Coen brothers – Ethan and Joel – have made quite the filmmaking career together culminating with Best Picture, Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar wins for “No Country for Old Men” back in 2008.
Joel, who received sole directorial credit for much of their career despite Ethan also directing due to Directors Guild of America bylaws, stepped out on his own with the William Shakespeare adaptation “The Tragedy of Macbeth” back in 2021.
Ethan followed suit in 2022 by making his solo directorial debut with the rock doc “Jerry Lee Lewis: Trouble in Mind.” Ethan’s sophomore stab “Drive-Away Dolls” (now in theaters) is a zany crime caper of a road picture that positively recalls some of the goofier comedies in the Coens’ oeuvre, i.e. “The Big Lebowski” and “Burn After Reading.”
It’s 1999 and Philadelphia friends Jamie (Margaret Qualley) and Marian (Geraldine Viswanathan) set out on a road trip to Tallahassee, Fla. to visit the latter’s Aunt Ellis (Connie Jackson) after the former breaks up with her cop girlfriend Sukie (Beanie Feldstein).
Jamie’s a wild child whose break-up was caused by her skirt-chasing ways … including one belonging to Carla (Annie Gonzalez). Marian is a far more buttoned-up office drone who hasn’t been laid in four years according to Jamie. Marian corrects – it’s actually been three years, four months and 14 days.
The ladies receive their chariot … a crummy Dodge Ares … from a drive-away service operated by Curlie (aces character actor Bill Camp, who makes a meal out of the prototypically Coen-esque dialogue to such a degree that it’s surprising this is the first time he’s worked with either brother).
The car was intended for goons Arliss (Joey Slotnick) and Flint (C.J. Wilson) who take their marching orders from The Chief (Colman Domingo). He in turn is working for conservative Florida senator Gary Channel (Matt Damon).
The car’s trunk contains a briefcase with materials sensitive to Channel as well as an ice bucket carrying the head of a collector from whom these materials were stolen. It’s now up to Arliss and Flint to track down Jamie and Marian and retrieve the trunk’s contents by any means necessary.
“Drive-Away Dolls” as directed by Coen and co-written by Coen and his wife Tricia Cooke won’t be for all tastes (as evidenced by its 37 percent Rotten Tomatoes audience score). It’s proudly pro-queer and sex-positive. It’s also raucously funny (at least it was to my wife, our friend and I … the rest of our audience seemed to disagree), an easy-breezy watch at a mere 84 minutes and sports two solid performances from Qualley and Viswanathan who have a fun, easy chemistry with one another.
I’ll say this much – I preferred “Drive-Away Dolls” to “The Tragedy of Macbeth” and an uncredited Miley Cyrus cameos as a character named Tiffany Plastercaster. What else could you possibly want?