Movie Review: DRIVE-AWAY DOLLS

By ABBIE BERNSTEIN / Staff Writer

Posted: February 23rd, 2024 / 04:11 AM

Rating: R
Stars: Margaret Qualley, Geraldine Viswanathan, Beanie Feldstein, Colman Domingo, Bill Camp, Joey Slotnick, C.J. Wilson, Matt Damon, Pedro Pascal
Writers: Ethan Coen & Tricia Cooke
Director: Ethan Coen
Distributor: Focus Features
Release Date: February 23, 2024

DRIVE-AWAY DOLLS has the unmistakable cadence of a Coen Brothers movie, even though on this one, Ethan Coen is directing solo and co-wrote the script with Tricia Cooke, rather than sibling Joel, his usual collaborator.

The film succeeds in being at once super-raunchy, somewhat sweet, occasionally very violent, and often so light that it threatens to float away.

We begin in late 1999 Philadelphia, where a man (Pedro Pascal) is murdered in an alley by two goons (designated as such in the credits, played by Joey Slotnick and C.J. Wilson), who take his metal briefcase.

We barely have a moment to mourn the briefness of Pascal’s role before we meet Jamie (Margaret Qualley), a bartender having sex with a woman who is decidedly not her live-in girlfriend Sukie (Beanie Feldstein).

Jamie’s friend Marian (Geraldine Viswanathan) keeps phoning, because she is miserable being hit on at the office where she works. When Sukie throws Jamie out, it’s at the same time that Marian has decided to quit her job and drive to Tallahassee, Florida to move in with her aunt.

Jamie decides that she will accompany Marian on this road trip. The young women go to Curlie’s Drive-Away, a company that pays people to drive a car one way to be dropped off at a specific destination. No sooner does Curlie (Bill Camp) get a phone call telling him that a car needs to be dropped off in Tallahassee than Jamie and Marion show up at his counter. Naturally, Curlie assumes they are the intended drivers.

At this point, we’re not sure whether we’re in for some version of REPO MAN (which is referenced by the characters) or something less cosmic. Coen and Cooke opt for a more Earthbound approach, which isn’t to say that DRIVE-AWAY DOLLS approaches naturalism.

We do come to greatly like the serious-minded Marion and even the (sometimes abrasively) impulsive Jamie. We can see following them on all kinds of adventures.

However, the adventure in DRIVE-AWAY DOLLS becomes more absurd the more we understand it. The writers deserve points for coming up with a maguffin of briefcase contents that no one is likely to guess. The overall tale is a traditional black comedy pursuit/flight arc, punctuated by bouts of enthusiastic lesbian sex (it’s a little odd that all of the women here seem to prefer the same technique, but whatever).

Qualley and Viswanathan are both perfect in energy and timing. Camp is superb as the gruff, increasingly bewildered small business owner, Feldstein is the embodiment of righteous wrath, Slotnick and Wilson make a great low-rent crook team, and Colman Domingo is excellent as their beleaguered boss.

There are those who literally cannot get enough of Coen wordplay, and they will be richly rewarded here. Fans of young lesbian romance will find a lot to be happy about as well. People wanting something a bit more substantial may drive away a smidge less gratified.

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