Women on the Run 

DRIVE-AWAY DOLLS. With the dissolution of the artistic and commercial enterprise that was the Coen Brothers sometime in the beginning of the end of the world (2018-ish), one of the most innovative and imitated dynasties in American cinema came to its apparent end. And with it, perhaps, an epoch of satirical invention transcending form and medium.

Joel has gone on to put up a play with Denzel Washington (The Tragedy of MacBeth, 2021) — so serious! — while Ethan made a Jerry Lee Lewis documentary (Jerry Lee Lewis: Trouble in Mind, 2022) and has now, with his wife Tricia Cooke, brought us a queer-love caper-comedy very much in the vein of his earlier fraternal collaborations. (When inviting my mother-in-law to join us at Dolls, I was not expecting as much lesbian sex or dildo drama as the movie delivers. Nor, more relevantly, was my wife. A good time was had by all.) Still, Drive-Away Dolls is lacking some of the alchemical leavening of their partnership.

In Philadelphia, circa 1999, Jamie (Margaret Qualley) has forced an end to her cohabitative relationship with Sukie (Beanie Feldstein) with her libidinous extra-curricular activity. Meanwhile, her straight-away, cubicle-drone friend Marian (Geraldine Viswanathan) has planned a quick vacation to visit her aunt in Tallahassee. Seizing a misbegotten opportunity for adventure, Jamie convinces Marian to travel together in a drive-away (a sort of unpaid car delivery service with which I was completely unfamiliar), by way of which they come into possession of a couple of cases containing very sensitive materials. The Chief (Colman Domingo) sets out in pursuit, dispatching as his advance party the Goons, Flint (C.J. Wilson) and Arliss (Joey Slotnick). A violent, bed-hopping road comedy ensues.

Familiar Coen motifs, themes and flourishes abound in Drive-Away Dolls, but it skews more toward the fringes of the screwball-deadly misanthropy spectrum than the brothers' best work. It may be unfair, of course, to judge the work of one against the canonical contributions of the duo, but such is the reality with which we are confronted.

Blood Simple (1984), Raising Arizona (1987), Miller's Crossing (1990), Barton Fink (1991), Fargo (1996), The Big Lebowski (1998), O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000), No Country for Old Men (2007), A Serious Man (2009), True Grit (2010) and Inside Llewyn Davis (2013) are generally agreed upon as modern classics all, a body of work that advances the form as much as it has influenced it. And even the outliers, the second-tier, headier, knottier stuff like The Hudsucker Proxy (1994), The Man Who Wasn't There (2001), Burn After Reading (2008), Hail, Caesar! (2016) and The Ballad of Buster Scruggs (2018) bear the witness marks of mastery and iconoclasm that define the Coens' style and continue to echo through the decades of work created by their acolytes and imitators.

Their combined output constitutes its own curriculum in a specific but highly variable sort of visual storytelling, a master class in composition, camera movement, editing and story structure. Even setting aside their narrative sensibilities (nerviness controlled, the world as populated by dupes and ne'er-do-wells, the most deeply satisfying of dark humors), their canon is an indelible showcase of style and intention unrivaled in its breadth and consistency. It used to be a movie-nerd cliché to accuse the Coens of contempt for their characters. I think it more appropriate to suggest they hate everybody, but they can at least channel the silliness of the people they create.

And silliness is very much the stock in trade of Drive-Away Dolls, even as it doles out violence and voyeurism and absurd quasi-espionage. And its self-aware humor is as much an attribute, a major part of its charm, as it would seem to be a bit of a crutch. Qualley, for one example, while excellent and hilarious from first frame to last, is saddled with an almost-ridiculous Texan accent that points up the exaggerated nature of the whole project. But it works, not least because Viswanathan is perfectly cast and acquitted as a foil Marian, the deadest-pan of straight-women to Jamie's wildcard. When the camera stays with the two of them, or with one or the other when their paths diverge, the effect is magnetic. Their dialogue, ricocheting salaciously around the interior of their stupid little Dodge drive-away, exposes without exposition, an ongoing rapid-fire insight into their particular strain of will-they-or-won't-they. And even when we pull back to reveal the greater conspiracy at the center of which our protagonists find themselves, the movie is fun and lively, with Domingo given an opportunity to stretch out comedically, and Pedro Pascal and Matt Damon delivering some charmingly deviant cameos.

But perhaps absent the more self-serious presence of Ethan's big brother, Dolls frequently wanders off into entertaining but probably extraneous asides. There are psychedelic interludes, a basement party with a girls soccer team and more "dyke bars" than we're likely to see in another major release. All of which are great ideas and fun flourishes, but may not exactly advance the story of the movie we're watching. R. 84M. BROADWAY.

John J. Bennett (he/him) is a movie nerd who loves a good car chase.

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