There’s an irreverence to Drive-Away Dolls (2024), Ethan Coen’s first solo directorial effort, that walks and talks like a classic Coen Brothers film–every accentuated southern accent, every phallic object, and every moment of back-and-forth bickering. All the elements we’ve come to love and admire about their style are omnipresent in this brisk 84-minute road trip movie. Perhaps for some fans, this silly, raunchy comedy will be a welcome addition to the oeuvre of the Coen’s combined filmographies, but for others, this might come off as an unenthused effort wherein Ethan Coen and co-writer, longtime editor, and wife, Tricia Cooke, were spinning their wheels to hit specific beats that far better Coen comedies have previously reveled in.
Drive-Away Dolls is a raunchy sex comedy that aims to be a B-movie exploitation road movie, as nothing is important from the events, yet we enjoy the company of exaggerated characters as the narrative escalates to ridiculous levels of humor. I have no doubt Ethan, Tricia, and the cast and crew had a blast making the film, but it feels like unearned laughs and thrills. The shadow of the Coen’s previous films clouds the frame of what could have been a radically new venture.
It’s almost unfair to watch this film through a Coen Brothers lens, as Tricia Cooke’s fingerprints are all over these characters and their actions. Cooke and Ethan developed the idea in the early 2000s, and, with Cooke being openly queer, she wanted to focus the narrative on two lesbian friends. Originally titled Drive-Away Dykes, Dolls heavily plays on Cooke’s experiences from the late ’90s to the early 2000s.
The film follows two friends, Jamie (Margaret Qualley) — the sex-craved, horny, bad-mouthed trouble-maker — and Marian (Geraldine Viswanathan) — the buttoned-up, Henry James-reading bookworm that refrains from indulgence and trouble. It’s 1999, and despite their different personalities, they co-mingle and find it easy to have each other’s back in Philadelphia. Marian wants to visit her aunt in Tallahassee, and Jamie tags along, provided they hit all the popular lesbian bar hot spots along the way. They utilize the service of driveaway cars, where they transport a car one way for another client. Due to apathetic incompetence from the owner, Curly (the always talented character actor, Bill Camp), they rent a car with a special briefcase full of significant items. Two bumbling gangsters—a charming talkative Arliss (Joey Slotnick) and the brooding brute Flint (C.J. Wilson)—are sent out to retrieve them at the behest of their boss, Chief (Colman Domingo). What ensues is a lot of slapdash hijinks, misunderstandings, and various dildos.
Image courtesy of Focus Features
The fun here is undeniable. Every scene transitions like a TV sitcom edit, creating a cartoonish effect that makes it hard to take the film seriously. Drive Away Dolls doesn’t invite the same level of scrutiny as previous Coen romps like Raising Arizona (1987), The Big Lebowski (1998), or Burn After Reading (2008), where characters and stupidity become intertwined like yin and yang. It thus boils down to the characters being well-defined and unique enough to carry a road picture. Sadly, the writing fails to match the talents of its actors.
Qualley and Viswanathan are a likable pair as two genuine friends who get to explore their emotions and sexuality while having a wink and a smile along the way. Their chemistry is infectious and endearing enough that they help anchor even some of the more absurd events, such as the time when Marian wakes up to a horny Jamie furiously masturbating right next to her. Only actors with enough conviction and steadfast deadpan can sell scenes like that. Moments like these, though, enhance the more intimate moments where the characters can confide in each other. As long as you can withstand Qualley’s deafening caricature of a Texas accent, their performances shine past some lackluster zingers and one-liners.
Arliss and Flint act like a poor rendition of the Buscemi and Stormare bickering criminals in Fargo (1996). Arliss continuously believes in using communication and charisma to track down their targets, while Flint is a “point gun in a threatening manner and ask questions later” kind of idiot. Their scenes mirror Jamie and Marian’s, as both showcase how men and women relate and talk to each other. Jamie is always supporting Marian while Arliss condescends and dismisses Flint in social situations.
It all feels thinly developed and padded out to fill the space of an already shortened runtime, but having actors like Slotnick and Wilson goes a long way in helping limp dialogue stand up straight. Slotnick is a great addition to the Coen arsenal, as his wide-eyed smarmy charisma helps differentiate him from previous Coen criminals. For the few moments Domingo and Camp are on screen, they infuse the film with presence and an otherworldly Coen-ness that actors would love to chew on. If only the film afforded them more moments to shine.
Pedro Pascal also makes a brief, pointless cameo, and Matt Damon gets to have some fun near the end. If those last two mentions feel half-hearted, it’s mainly due to how the film treats them. It’s clear the actors were asked to poke a bit of fun at themselves and come in as absurd plot points, yet their outcomes don’t feel that much earned or funny. Actors making fun of themselves is a constant Coen tradition that most often pays off immensely; look no further than Brad Pitt’s dim-witted gym employee in Burn After Reading. Yet here it feels tacked on without proper set-up. They are jokes that rely on the payoff of audience expectations, but in a small enough runtime, their inclusions distract from the overall atmosphere.
People get shot, dildos get used, bickering remains constant, and the universe of the Coen Brothers becomes slightly more expanded with Drive-Away Dolls. There’s nothing wrong with a film that doesn’t aim to be more than a zany madcap comedy; only the Coens could get away with making a picture that doesn’t have to satisfy anyone but themselves. Perhaps this will satisfy a portion of Coen devotees, but the film reminds me of poor imitations of Coen brothers films.
The types of imitators born in the 90s and 2000s yearned to replicate the quirky characters and snappy dialogue with bloodier and stupider narratives. Drive-Away Dolls is made with a lot of heart and passion by Coen and Cooke, but as the film goes through its motions, with slight variations of psychedelic, drug-tripped montages, one can’t help but feel that this engine is slightly out-of-tune.
Review Courtesy of Amritpal Rai
Feature Image Credit to Focus Features via The LA Times
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