Drive-Away Dolls

A raucous and raunchy road-movie, Drive Away Dolls finds ways to replicate screwball comedies and noirish mcguffins that are entertainingly chaotic. Directed by Ethan Coen, it forms an intriguing counterpoint to his brother Joel's solo effort The Tragedy Of Macbeth. Fans and scholars of film would do well to see this, that, and any of the Coen's ensemble efforts to see how distinct sensibilities can synthesise. Drive Away Dolls has more to commend it than its origins, but everything has to start somewhere.

Here it's a messy break-up, not unearned, and a need for a fresh start. There's more before, but we'll get to that, past body shots and some remodelling that puts quite different weights on 'do it yourself'. Jamie (Margaret Qualley) and Marian (Geraldine Viswanathan) are looking to get away, and fate will drop something in their laps. More than fate, in fact, there's also a whistle.

It screened at 2024's Glasgow Film Festival as the Surprise Film, and the audience clearly enjoyed it. While festival director Alison Gardiner lamented (once again) the stress caused by the secrecy, the sold out screening was filled with laughter. She pointed out that many of the festival's staff were in attendance, so cautiously kept were the movie's details that they were in the dark until they were in the dark.

The opening is neon-lit and not a little bit gory, the enemy of one's enemy probably deserves better than a waiter's friend. The sequence has more dutch angles than a map of Amsterdam. That geometry is paired with a fondness for a collapsing transition, a hinged wipe, that harks back to an earlier era.

As does the film, set in the distant past of 1999. That's got practical reasons, to remove the prospect of cellphones, to do away with the possibility of internet searches that would replace the directories of lesbian book-stores, to allow a series of jokes about a political landscape long since eroded.

Jamie and Marian end up pursued by two goons, Joey Slotnick and CJ Wilson. Their parallel bickering has echoes of any quantity of patter comedy - with Coen's spouse Tricia Cooke as co-writer there's a clear sense of those Coen rhythms. Elsewhere music does a lot to pattern proceedings. Those ambushed by the use of Linda Ronstadt's Long Long Time in episode three of The Last Of Us will be similarly susceptible here. Pedro Pascal is common to both too, though fans should note that you might see more of him in The Mandalorian.

To quote the film "saying 'it's art' doesn't stop any arguments," but it does lend a direction (or two) to how they unfold. There are moments where merely recalling them makes me laugh, and there are few higher plaudits for a comedy. Beanie Feldstein as ex-girlfriend and character-reference Sukie is an excellent foil, counterpoint to the hapless goon(s) and their melliflous master, Colman Domingo's Chief. Their twin journeys to return and recover property to and from Jamie (in particular) and Marian (by proxy) mix cold revenge and hot pursuit.

Willing to be referential, self-referential, but always irreverent, combinations of cowboy boots and literary lovers provide delight in detail. I'd made a note regarding how some of the events are depicted, a wonder about the male gaze. That's possibly on me, watching the watchers. Lensed by Ari Wegner, she's been behind the camera for several films among my favourites in the last few years. True History Of The Kelly Gang, The Power Of The Dog and Eileen all fall under the woolly auspices of 'period pieces', and while the territories are wildly different, the psychogeographic paths of discovery do have significant and stunning overlap.

After starting with a heady cocktail of homicide and cunnilingus, Drive Away Dolls takes a meandering course to further comedy. The 18 rating is completely earned. There's violence, language, and plenty of other forms of dickishness. As with A Serious Man there's a sense of play that borders on the perverse, but as I often consider when writing, if you can't please anyone you might as well amuse yourself. I was perhaps prepared for some of the reveals by familiarity with countercultural fan figures from the history of rock and roll, and having read The Illuminatus Trilogy long before my 23rd birthday. In other places there was novelty (adult and otherwise) and this is one of the few films I've seen where a length of ribbon drew a round of applause.

Sharp in dialogue and somewhat soft of heart, Drive-Away Dolls manages to satisfy in several ways. As an inveterate bullet counter I appreciate a film that keeps its measure when it shoots its shot, but triggers are not the only things fingered. The other day I had a conversation where someone lamented that they don't make films like they used to and while that's largely true from an economic perspective it's also unutterably false. The example they picked was Krull, and Rebel Moon (and soon its own part two) are right there. This is a reasonable counterpoint too, it is from its opening a Philadelphia story. I'll leave it as an exercise for the viewer to determine where the screw and balls are coming from, but to use the baseball metaphor the film has made its pitch and is close to a home run.