Directed by Ethan Coen
Where & When: Landmark Theatres Sunset, West Hollywood, CA. February 27, 2024 5:45 PM
For his first narrative feature film without his long-time collaborator (and sibling), Joel, Ethan Coen has delivered "Drive Away Dolls", a dark-edged, queer positive, road trip comedy-thriller that captures some of the style that this team of filmmaking brothers have been crafting for almost forty years. And while the film begins promising, the tone of "Dolls" shifts abruptly midway through, creating a disjointed, rough-and-tumble farce.
Set in 1999, a man named Santos (Pedro Pascal) waits nervously at a Philadelphia restaurant clutching a briefcase. Attempting to make a hasty exit, Santos is chased into an alley by a gang of intimidating thugs who forcefully remove the case from his person.
Meanwhile, in another part of town, Jamie (Margaret Qualley), a charming yet horny gal from Texas, is a notorious skirt-chaser. But one person who has had enough of her womanizing and sexual inappropriateness is Sukie (Beanie Feldstein), Jamie's police officer girlfriend who kicks her out of their apartment. Jamie's friend, Marian (Geraldine Viswanathan) is her polar opposite: uptight, anxious and sexually repressed. Marian plans to visit a relative in Tallahassee and Jamie, now without a home, decides to tag along. She talks Marian into getting to Florida using a drive-away service which offers free use of a car by transporting the auto to a specific location for a client. But a mix-up by the owner, Curlie (Bill Camp) has the girls in the wrong car which was supposed to have gone to a nefarious trio of criminals lead by a man named Chief (Colman Domingo).
As they travel down the freeway, Jamie makes detours to local lesbian bars, actively trying to loosen up Marian to help get her laid, where she is met with much resistance from her road buddy. Yet unbeknownst to the girls, this ruthless gang is hot on their trail. A flat tire leads Jamie and Marian to discover the briefcase and a box, which contains the most recognizable part of Santos on ice, in the car trunk.
As part of a team with his brother, Coen has been an effective cinematic storyteller, together creating their own distinctive, offbeat style of filmmaking. Now with Tricia Cooke, his partner in life and film, Coen seems to want to explore a new direction. Yet with "Drive Away Dolls" (which began with the much better and more accurate title, "Drive Away Dykes"), this team, with Cooke also serving as editor, struggle with coherence and inventiveness. The film's pacing is sluggish and as the story moves along, these plot developments come across as more baffling than intriguing.
So what exactly is inside of this briefcase? Let's just say that the contents are probably the last thing you would ever have imagined. And while I will give points for this unexpected silly gag, the real problem lies with this not making much sense in regards to the relentless pursuit of these girls nor require the amount of disturbing bloodshed and mayhem involved in the desperate retrieval of the case. From this point to the conclusion, "Drive Away Dolls" turns into a weirdly violent and strangely wacky comedy with no real connective tissue to the provocative, mildly humorous mystery in the first part of the film.
There are certainly a few laugh-out-loud moments and some engaging, cerebral conversations to be found in the film. And Qualley and Viswanathan have a great connection on screen. Yet visually and thematically, "Drive Away Dolls" comes across like of a poorly conceived imitation of a Coen Brothers movie.
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