When the venerable filmmaking duo Joel and Ethan Coen announced a hiatus from their nearly four-decade partnership to focus on solo projects, I was intrigued and apprehensive. Such endeavors don’t always pan out (just ask Mick Jagger).
Joel Coen went on to partner with his wife, Frances McDormand, to make a visually captivating rendition of Shakespeare’s Macbeth. Meanwhile, his brother, Ethan, collaborated with his own wife, Tricia Cooke, who had edited many of the Coens’ most memorable screenplays, for a raunchy dark comedy titled Drive-Away Dolls.
Ethan Coen’s solo directorial debut centers on two lesbians with two very different outlooks on love and life: Jamie (Margaret Qualley), a sporadic and spontaneous Don Juan who was recently evicted by a roommate over her infidelity, and Marian (Geraldine Viswanathan), a demure, bookish romantic often seen evading parties to read Henry James.
United only by their desire to jet out of town, the unlikely pair rent a car and chart a course for Tallahassee, Florida. Unbeknownst to them, as a result of a mix-up at the car rental shop, a mysterious suitcase from the set of Pulp Fiction wound up in their trunk, soon setting a gang of henchmen on their tail.
Drive-Away Dolls has all the hallmarks of a Coen brothers movie: quirky and idiosyncratic characters (check), comedically incompetent criminals (check), and a road trip (check). Psychedelic intermezzos frequently fill gaps between scenes, harkening back to The Big Lebowski.
The only thing missing is a second Coen brother. The absence of the full team is noticeably felt in the dialogue and overall pacing of the film. It lacks the razor wit and rhythm that made the brothers’ classics such as Fargo or O Brother, Where Art Thou? so memorable.
Set in the 1990s, an era in which LGBT politics had not yet swept across and suffused American culture, much of the film’s ire is aimed at Republicans and religious conservatives who espouse traditional marriage and family values — positions that former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and former President Barack Obama (notorious right-wingers) held well into the early 2000s. “We’re Democrats,” the girls proudly proclaim in one scene when accosted by the villainous Republican governor of Florida.
There’s another scene in which Marian, while walking home at night, is inexplicably pulled over and arrested by a callous police officer under the tepid guise of vagrancy. Such petty partisan jabs are an anomaly in Coen films. They had otherwise only ever lampooned Hollywood’s ironic flirtations with socialism in 2016’s Hail, Caesar.
But amid its progressive overtones, Drive-Away Dolls subtly navigates toward a more traditional theme: the value of lasting relationships and marriage. Jamie, initially portrayed as a modern-day Casanova, gradually confronts the hollowness of her transient romantic escapades. Recognizing her genuine feelings toward her companion, she jettisons her hedonistic lust for flings.
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The film cleverly reverses the Grease trope. Despite Jamie’s efforts to stray her straight-edge friend Marian into promiscuity, she learns the importance of stability and commitment. Her character arc culminates in a newfound appreciation for monogamy, leading her to yearn for a stable family life and marriage. It seems those conservative kooks were right about something after all.
Despite its flaws and tenuous plot, Drive-Away Dolls packs sufficient laughs to hold your attention throughout its brisk 80-minute runtime. The film revels in its cheesy, frisky B-movie charm, embracing its lighthearted spirit without ever veering into self-serious territory. And if you can see past the progressive facade, it offers a lesson that even its right-wing antagonists can get behind.
Harry Khachatrian (@Harry1T6) is a film critic for the Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential blog and a computer engineer in Toronto pursuing his MBA.