Illustration by Michael DiMilo
By Geoff Carter
Since their first feature film Blood Simple premiered in 1984, the Coen Brothers have been churning out their signature brand of quirky and unique movies like nobody’s business—and no one makes movies like the Coens. They’ve brought us The Big Lebowski, O Brother, Where Art Thou?, Raising Arizona, and Fargo—among many others. Their idiosyncratic combinations of comedy, suspense, gore, and the surreal are never quite the same from film to film—meaning they can never be pigeonholed into any one specific genre or formula. How could one compare the ironic Hollywood panache of Hail, Caesar or the homespun folksiness of Fargo with the tongue-in-cheek noir of The Big Lebowski? The Coens are a one-of-a-kind creative team who have created their own style—almost their own genre—if you will.
Recently, however—after a forty-year collaboration—the brothers have gone off to do their own thing. In 2021, Joel directed a beautiful black-and-white minimalist version of The Tragedy of MacBeth with Denzel Washington and Frances McDormand, while Ethan recently released the absurdist crime romp Drive Away Dolls. While MacBeth is a beautifully conceived production—and somewhat of an homage to Orson Welles, Dolls is the complete opposite, a hilarious absurdist (and sometimes raunchy) romp reminiscent of Raising Arizona. And it has echoes of the B-movie genre.
Drive-Away Dolls starts in a traditional noir setting. A nervous man named Santos (Pedro Pascal) sits in a bar clutching a metal briefcase, obviously waiting for a contact. He leaves hurriedly and is followed by the bartender of the place (who turns out to be his contact) who confronts Santos, takes the case, and dispatches him in a gloriously gory fashion.
Meanwhile, the strait-laced Marian (Geraldine Viswanathan) calls her free-spirited friend Jamie (Margaret Qualley), an avowed lesbian, whose relationship with girlfriend Sukie (Beanie Feldstein) is ending because of Jamie’s promiscuous behavior. Marian tells Jamie she is going to Tallahassee to visit her aunt and Jamie decides to accompany her in a drive-away (a car needing to be delivered to a certain destination) to that place.
In the meantime, Curlie (Bill Camp) gets a phone call telling him that a certain Dodge Aries (with hidden illicit cargo) needs to be delivered to Tallahassee. Immediately afterwards, Jamie and Marian arrive needing a driveaway to the same destination. Curlie assumes the girls are the original clients who booked the Aries and gives them the car. Shortly afterwards, Chief (Colman Domingo), Arliss (Joey Sklotnick), and Flint (C.J. Wilson) arrive to pick up the Aires. Discovering the mix-up, Chief dispatches his crew to intercept the girls and retrieve the illegal cargo.
While Marian wants to go straight to Tallahassee per their contract, Jamie is determined to take some “fun” detours and tries to persuade Marian to stop at some lesbian bars to “loosen up”. Marian reluctantly goes but decides the bar scene is not for her and goes home to read Henry James’ The Europeans. Jamie, however (true to form), picks up a friend at the bar and has some fun. She meets a girls’ soccer team who invites the two of them to a wild—and hilarious—party.
With the comically inept Arliss and Flint somewhat hot—lukewarm—on their trail, Jamie and Marian continue to explore the Deep South along with their sexuality. After getting a flat tire, the two discover the metal briefcase along with a leather box (containing Santos’ head) in the trunk of their car. The two get to Florida and are finally caught by Arliss and Flint, who retrieve the briefcase along with Santos’ head and kidnap the girls, taking them to a local dog track. Chief arrives and tells them exactly why the contents of the briefcase (I cannot spoil this one) are so important, especially to conservative Florida senator Gary Channel (Matt Damon).
After an argument, Flint kills the other Chief and Arliss and leaves. Jamie and Marian escape and decide to blackmail the senator, leading to a comic denouement of epic proportions.
Drive-Away Dolls is something of an anomaly. Part unabashedly raucous sex comedy, part buddy film (a la Thelma and Louise), part thriller, part nostalgic sixties retro trip, and part feminist tract, this movie is simultaneously quintessential Coen Brothers and an uniquely individual production.
While Coen Brothers films have delved into the outrageously erotic, as in Burn after Reading, the degree of sexual activity in Drive-Away Dolls is, to say the least, excessive, but although, in a tongue-in-cheek way, it is an homage to the drive-in exploitation films of the sixties, it is also one of the underpinnings to a feminist sensibility found in this film. Jamie expresses herself through her sexuality and helps Marian discover fulfillment through discovering her own.
Ethan Coen is treading on thin ice here, but a filmmaker of his experience and sensibilities is more than aware of it. Maintaining that female sexuality is the foundation of a woman’s identity is risky, but Coen somehow pulls it off. Jamie’s unabashed exuberance and the comic turns taken (like the soccer team’s make-out session) temper Coen’s graphic depictions of lesbian sex acts. In fact, Jamie and Marian’s final triumph over the men chasing them for the metal briefcase is predicated (no spoilers here) on the objects of desire.
This precision tap-dancing between gratuitous sex and feminist identity is indicative of the Coen’s genius. As a pair, they’ve kept a delicate balance between comedy, suspense, and pathos. With Drive-Away Dolls and his upcoming feature, Honey, Don’t!, the second in their “lesbian B-movie trilogy”, Ethan Coen is exploring new sensibilities—and possibilities—of cinematic female identity. By framing female awareness and power in a B-movie milieu and a comic sensibility, Coen does not demean these struggles, but—on the contrary—makes them seem more possible and plausible. Jamie and Marian’s victory transcends the completely outrageous plot of Dolls; it is almost subliminal to the hilarity and sheer audacity of the film.
As Jamie, Margaret Qualley’s presence almost jumps off the screen. She is outspoken, audacious, outrageous, and irrepressible—and charming. Qualley infuses Jamie with a contagiously fun energy. She’s like the college roommate who always knew about the big party—a ton of fun that just won’t quit. Geraldine Viswanathan is Jamie’s perfect foil. Even-keeled, temperate, and obstinately stodgy, she highlights Qualley’s comic energy while maintaining her own quietly incredulous persona. She is a master of the eye roll. The supporting cast, including Matt Damon and Colman Domingo, are excellent. The interplay between Flint and Arliss (reminiscent of the kidnappers in Fargo) is hilarious while Damon’s ultra-conservative senator is desperate, but righteous, stuffy, and selfishly guilty at the same time.
During the course of the film, on several occasions, the camera zooms in on the trunk of the Aires, still containing the mysterious metal briefcase, and then an animated montage of psychedelia reminiscent of Peter Max swirls over the screen. At the time, before the secret of the case is revealed, these shots are, to say the least, completely enigmatic. Like Vladimir Nabokov, Coen leaves these breadcrumbs to lead the viewer to the most unlikely of destinations. The film, co-written by Ethan Coen and his wife Tricia Cooke, is brilliant. The snappy dialogue, the ludicrous and sometimes shocking humor, and the fine line drawn between B-movie exploitation flicks and serious questions of feminist power are brilliantly done.
While Coen Brothers films are more than the sum of their parts, Ethan Coen’s Drive-Away Dolls proves that he is a creative power unto himself.
This film is a hilarious fun romp as well as being a fascinatingly twisted mystery with a subtle underpinning of feminist power dynamics. It is, like either or both of the Coens, one of a kind.