The Dolls Begin

A free-spirited young woman and her fussy friend go on a madcap road trip in 2024's Drive-Away Dolls. This was the first of Ethan Coen's "Lesbian B-Movie Trilogy", the second entry of which premiered over the past weekend in the U.S. but not here in Japan. So I settled for watching this one which is available on Amazon Prime here. It's good and Margaret Qualley is fantastic in it but, like the lesser Coen Brothers' comedies, its silliness overstays its welcome at some point.

Ethan Coen is half of the famous Coen Brothers, makers of the famed cinematic masterpieces Fargo, Miller's Crossing, The Big Lebowski, and No Country for Old Men. Some years ago, the duo split up after more than thirty years together to start directing their own projects. Among other things, this gives us an opportunity to gauge the particular tastes and talents of the brothers whose individual artistic voices were previously always combined into one.

The other brother, Joel Coen, has so far directed just one project, an adaptation of Shakespeare's Macbeth starring Denzel Washington in the title role. The vastly different tones of the two projects suggest Ethan may have generally been more responsible for the comedic aspects of their films and Joel for the more sombre. But who can say for sure? Maybe their time apart is to test territory each had previously always left to the other.

Ethan co-wrote Drive-Away Dolls with his wife, Tricia Cooke, and they pitched it originally as something in the vein of '70s exploitation films or John Waters movies. I don't find it has the accidental sincerity of the former or the rambling camp of the latter. It really feels, as I said, like one of the sillier Coen Brothers' comedies like Hail, Caesar or even The Hudsucker Proxy. However, the two main characters are well established.

Qualley plays Jamie, a southern gal who's recently broken up with her angry cop girlfriend, Sukie. Jamie decides to go on a road trip with Marian (Geraldine Viswanathan), whom we meet fussily correcting her co-worker's grammar in their workplace of nondescript office cubicles. So the odd-couple set up is clear from the start as the two characters are almost polar opposites. Both are quite charming, particularly Qualley who reminds me here why I thought she was the most impressive of the Once Upon a Time in Hollywood Manson girls. Qualley captures the hare-brained, easy-going energy of the Lou Costello half of her double act with Viswanathan. Viswanathan's Marian is sweetly uptight, staying up in their hotel room reading Henry James, only to be disturbed when Jamie returns drunk with some strange girl she'd picked up in a bar.

There's a plot involving murderous thugs and a corrupt senator that's mainly entertaining for another double act, the pair of thugs on the lesbians' tail, a grimly violent enforcer and a chatter-box, reminiscent of Steve Buscemi and Peter Stormare's characters in Fargo. Both sides of the story are better in the first half of the film but I found myself restless with the silliness by the latter half. Your mileage may vary.

Drive-Away Dolls is available on Amazon Prime in Japan.