Taglines: A story of two ladies going south.
Drive-Away Dolls movie storyline. Drive-Away Dolls follows Jamie, an uninhibited free spirit bemoaning yet another breakup with a girlfriend, and her demure friend Marian who desperately needs to loosen up. In search of a fresh start, the two embark on an impromptu road trip to Tallahassee, but things quickly go awry when they cross paths with a group of inept criminals along the way.
Drive-Away Dolls is an American comedy road film directed by Ethan Coen. Coen wrote the screenplay with his wife Tricia Cooke; they also produced the film with Robert Graf and Working Title Films’ Tim Bevan and Eric Fellner. It stars Margaret Qualley, Geraldine Viswanathan, Beanie Feldstein, Colman Domingo, Pedro Pascal, Bill Camp, and Matt Damon. Drive-Away Dolls is set to be released in the United States by Focus Features on February 23, 2024.
Film Review for Drive-Away Dolls
After the “divorce” (the last film they filmed together was The Ballad of Buster Scruggs in 2018), the Coen brothers took very different artistic paths: Joel opted for a solemn Shakespearean incursion like The Tragedy of Macbeth, while Ethan filmed a documentary about Jerry Lee Lewis and now the crazy Drive-Away Dolls (Two Girls on the Run in Spain and Mexico, and Love is a Sleigh Trip to Hell as a launch title for the home market in Argentina).
Jamie (Margaret Qualley) and Marian (Geraldine Viswanathan) are two lesbian girls decidedly dissimilar to each other. The first is extroverted and overwhelming (she comes from a love breakup with Beanie Feldstein’s Sukie), while the second is shy, timid, contained, repressed. Opposites, of course, attract and serve for a buddy movie like this one set in 1999, in which both will travel the entire East Coast of the United States (from Philadelphia to Tallahassee in Florida) aboard a dilapidated car whose trunk contains …a severed head and some latex penises belonging to someone very powerful (yes, some very particular McGuffins). And they will be followed more and more closely by motels and gay bars by small-time gangsters very typical of the Coens’ films.
Ethan’s capacity for provocation (co-author of the script with his wife and also editor Tricia Cooke), the playful spirit of Margaret Qualley here with a somewhat exaggerated accent and always ready for anything (you’ll also see her in The Substance), but the 84 minutes of Love is a Sleigh Ride to Hell work better in theory, in its ideas, than in several of its gags. It’s like a kind of minor and not so successful version of The Night of the Nerds / Booksmart (in which the aforementioned Feldstein shone).
For those who appreciate the black comedy genre with some small-town pathos in the background and a lot of entanglements, Ethan’s film – whose greatest audacity comes from the sexual experiences of the leading duo and the empathy of the characters that contrasts with cynicism of the Coens’ previous work – is at times attractive and with nice cameos (Pedro Pascal, Bill Camp, Matt Damon). In short, neither so much nor so little.
Drive-Away Dolls (2024)
Directed by: Ethan Coen
Starring: Margaret Qualley, Geraldine Viswanathan, Beanie Feldstein, Colman Domingo, Pedro Pascal, Bill Camp, Matt Damon, Joey Slotnick, Annie Gonzalez, Abby Hilden, Connie Jackson
Screenplay by: Ethan Coen, Tricia Cooke
Production Design by: Yong Ok Lee
Cinematography by: Ari Wegner
Film Editing by: Ethan Coen, Tricia Cooke
Costume Design by: Peggy Schnitzer
Set Decoration by: Nancy Haigh
Art Direction by: W. Haley Ho, Gregory A. Weimerskirch
Music by: Carter Burwell
MPAA Rating: R for crude sexual content, full nudity, language and some violent content.
Distributed by: Focus Features (United States), Universal Pictures (International)
Release Date: February 23, 2024
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