Drive-Away Dolls, 2024.
Directed by Ethan Coen.
Starring Margaret Qualley, Geraldine Viswanathan, Beanie Feldstein, Colman Domingo, Pedro Pascal, Bill Camp, and Matt Damon.
SYNOPSIS:
Half of the famous Coen brothers filmmaking duo teamed up with his wife to write and direct Drive-Away Dolls, which, unfortunately, doesn’t quite clear the bar established by so many of the Coens’ classic movies. It’s still a fun ride, although the extras in this Blu-ray release are meager, which gives the impression that the studio didn’t want to put much effort into this one.
I suppose it was inevitable that Joel and Ethan Coen would work on their own films at some point. Drive-Away Dolls is Ethan’s first solo project (not counting a 2022 documentary), which he co-wrote with his wife, Tricia Cooke, and I have to admit that my TL;DR reaction is that it feels like a movie made by folks who wanted to ape the Coens’ style but missed the mark.
Set in 1999, the “drive-away” part of the title is the reference to a drive-away service that the two main characters, Jamie (Margaret Qualley) and Marian (Geraldine Viswanathan), use to obtain a car for a trip to Florida. Unfortunately, the owner was supposed to give that particular car to others. (Side note: I’ve never heard of a drive-away service, but I can see how it could have been a thing at one time.)
Those others are people of the criminal variety who had been tasked with driving that car to Florida because of what its trunk contains. Learning that the car is gone, two of them are sent to intercept the young women, which was harder in 1999 than it might be today, given the lack of widely used cell phones at the time.
Marian had the trip planned ahead of time to visit her aunt, and when Jamie’s relationship to police officer Sukie (Beanie Feldstein) ends, she decides to tag along. Marian is uptight while Jamie is very much a free spirit, creating inevitable friction between the two of them.
Both women are lesbians, although Jamie is much more open about her sexual history and encourages Marian to loosen up and have fun along the way. An encounter with a women’s soccer team gives them a way to distract their pursuers, who they know are after them because they’ve discovered what’s in the trunk.
The contents of the trunk are a mystery at first; Marian and Jamie know what’s in the case and the hatbox, but they’re not revealed to the viewer until later. That reveal came across as a “Meh” kind of moment for me, and Matt Damon’s cameo at the end only added to that emotion.
Pedro Pascal has a cameo too, although his character appears in the very first scene, which sets in motion the desire of various parties to possess the case. Honestly, I think it would have been better if the contents of the case were a mystery, like in Pulp Fiction.
Drive-Away Dolls also suffers from lapses in story logic, including the primary question that sets the whole adventure in motion: Why would criminals want to entrust something important (and illegal) to a drive-away service? Side note: Why do they bother with the contents of the hatbox anyway?
That said, this film features plenty of enjoyable banter between its characters that’s a hallmark of many of the Coens’ movies, and that aspect of it kept me entertained from the beginning to the end. While the dynamic between Jamie and Marian is a heavily used trope, the former is a fun character who I could have possibly encountered in 1999, when I was in my late 20s.
This Blu-ray release also includes the film on DVD, along with a code for a digital copy. The extras are pretty scant, unfortunately, starting with a pair of micro-featurettes that run three minutes each. One of them includes the cast talking about their roles while the other features Coen and Cooke discussing their collaboration.
There’s also a one-minute bit called Road Trip Essentials that features Qualley and Viswanathan talking about their must-have items when going on a road trip. I went on a few road trips way back when, and I hope today’s young people are keeping that trend alive.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★ ★
Brad Cook
