Reviews and Comments by Ken Burke
I invite you to join me on a regular basis to see how my responses to current cinematic offerings compare to the critical establishment, which I’ll refer to as either the CCAL (Collective Critics at Large) if they’re supportive or the OCCU (Often Cranky Critics Universe) when they go negative. However, due to COVID concerns I’m mostly addressing streaming options with limited visits to theaters, where I don’t think I’ve missed much anyway, though better options may be on the horizon. (Note: Anything in bold blue [some may look near purple] is a link to something more in the review.)
My reviews’ premise: “You can’t please everyone, so you got to please yourself.”
(from "Garden Party" by Rick Nelson and the Stone Canyon Band, 1972 album of the song’s name)
Drive-Away Dolls (Ethan Coen) rated R 84 min.
Here’s the trailer:
(Use the full screen button in the image’s lower right to enlarge its size;
activate the same button or use “esc” keyboard key to return to normal.)
If you can abide plot spoilers read on, but this blog’s intended for those who’ve seen the film or want to save some $ (as well as recognizing those readers like me who just aren’t that tech-savvy). To help any of you who want to learn more details yet avoid these all-important plot-reveals I’ll identify any give-away sentences/sentence-clusters with colors plus arrows:
⇒The first and last words will be noted with arrows and red.⇐ OK, now continue on if you prefer.
What Happens: This movie is set in 1999 Philadelphia just before the dawn of what many considered to be the new millennium in 2000 (precisionists insist it didn’t start until 2001 due to there being no year 0, just year 1, when this record-keeping began), with the first scenes of a distraught man, Santos (Pedro Pascal), in a bar clutching a metal briefcase. He leaves but is followed by the bartender who catches him in an alley, kills him (we later find out he was decapitated). In the parallel scenario of this narrative we’re introduced to Sukie (Beanie Feldstein) and Jamie (Margaret Qualley) who’ve just broken up due to Jamie’s frequent infidelity (apparently, she never lets an opportunity for another orgasm pass her by). Jamie the extrovert then learns her close friend Marian (Geraldine Viswanathan), the introvert, is headed to Tallahassee, FL to visit her aunt and go birdwatching. Jamie insists on tagging along, so they rent a car from Curlie’s (Bill Camp) Drive-Away service where you can just travel one way, drop the car off at your destination, not bother returning it to Philly. The only problem is that the car they take was intended for some thugs—Arliss (Joey Slotnick), Flint (C.J. Wilson), and Chief (Colman Domingo)—who do great bodily damage to Curlie (surprisingly, they don’t kill him) but still can’t find any avenue for learning what route these women will be taking to FL.
Now, about that trip: Marian, of course, wants to go straight to Tallahassee, but Jamie keeps insisting they re-route to various famous lesbian bars along the way both for her own delight and in an attempt to get Marian laid (sadly for her, hasn’t happened for several years) to try to loosen her up somewhat, get her interested in doing something besides reading Henry James’ The Europeans (1878). As they go about their diversions, in Marietta, GA they encounter a women’s soccer team (with all of them apparently lesbian) which leads to a hook-up for Jamie while Marion just grumbles off to the motel lobby to keep reading her book. When our travelers finally get to FL, they’re stopped by a flat tire so they open the trunk to surprisingly find Santos’ briefcase along with his severed head in a bowl of dry ice or liquid nitrogen; when they open the briefcase they find it contains several dildos made from the casts of various men’s penises, so Jamie’s overjoyed. Arliss and Flint have been clumsily-trying to track our protagonists, finally get a lead when they learn about the GA motel through Jamie’s use of her credit card. Meanwhile, Jamie’s determined Marion needs to have sex so she initiates it, much to Marion’s delight (we also get a flashback of young Marion peeking through a hole in a fence at a woman in a bathing suit lounging by a pool); later, Jamie uses a dildo on herself.
Just as she finishes, though, the 2 thugs burst into her hotel room having figured out where Jamie and Marion are staying, retrieve their missing items, abduct Jamie and Marion, take them (tied up) to the back room of a dog racing track where they’re joined by Chief who explains the dildos are from notable public men including Senator Gary Channel, who’s fearful of his reputation being ruined if anyone finds out about his penis-likeness (that’s the one Jamie used) so he’s willing to pay a ransom to keep it all quiet (hmm, sounds strangely similar to a criminal trial going on in NYC right now). The usual lack of honor among thieves, however, leads to an argument where Flint shoots his colleagues dead, runs away, leaving the women to somehow untie themselves, then contact Sen. Channel for their own ransom demand (Jamie also had earlier phoned Sukie, a Philly cop, about what they’d discovered in their trunk, offering her a chance for great recognition in solving whatever’s been going on so she’s on her way to Tallahassee as well). ⇒Jamie and Marion meet Channel (Matt Damon) at a lesbian bar, give him his dildo in exchange for $1 million, but as they leave the bar Sukie shows up, Channel tries to kill them all, is shot by Sukie. He survives, but news of his sordid life hits the media so his reputation’s ruined just as he feared. Jamie and Marion then meet with Marion’s aunt where they tell her they’re off to MA where same-sex marriage is legal, but as they drive away from their hotel a bellhop races out to try to catch them because Jamie left a bag that contains 2 plaster casts Jamie had made (by uncredited Miley Cyrus as Tiffany Plastercaster) of Channel’s desired-dildo.⇐
So What? Well, what do you expect from a Coen brother’s movie (Ethan’s first fictional-feature directorial effort [previously did Jerry Lee Louis: Trouble in Mind documentary in 2022] without brother Joel [who also had a solo direction, The Tragedy of Macbeth in 2021; review in our January 20, 2022 posting])—screenplay by Ethan and his wife, Tricia Cooke—where you find a beheading, lesbian sex, and a bunch of dildos in a tale played as a comedy? I assume you wouldn’t expect anything in the vein of a traditional romance like the famous Love Story (Arthur Hiller, 1970), although maybe the tag line for this current movie should be something like “Obvious opportunities mean you never have to say you’re horny.” In typical Coen fashion we also get unexpected interludes at times of wavy psychedelic imagery that seems to have wandered into this pre-millennium era from 30 years earlier, along with odd acts such as Jamie spray-painting “Love is a sleigh ride to Hell” on the trunk of the rental car, knowing full well that would result in some sort of fine whenever they finally deliver the car to wherever badly-beaten Curlie might tell them to go next.
For that matter, I understand how Curlie was confused when the women showed up at his establishment to pick up a car for Tallahassee after such a reservation had been made previously by the crooks (I guess Sen. Channel was from FL, would most likely agree to meet there, otherwise why were Chief and his goons going to Tallahassee?), but why did the crooks apparently go to Curlie’s place previously to put the briefcase in that specific trunk? Along that line of inquiry, why was Santos’ head part of the deal? I realize this is not the type of movie where you expect to get clarity on such questions, but generally speaking when Ethan works with his brother I don’t find myself making such fundamental inquires when the end credits roll. Nevertheless, there are plenty of laughs in … Dolls (originally conceived as Drive-Away Dykes, but that seems to have produced marketing hesitations)—even if some are rather macabre—with the overall absurd situation obviously intended to be taken at face value just so one odd event could find a way to lead to the next. I can see why there could be numerous reasons why various potential viewers could say quickly from the plot description that this is a movie to avoid (a good number of critics have made that decision already after having seen it), but overall I found it pleasantly quirky (and somewhat grotesque in that odd, familiar Coen manner) enough to recommend at least to consider watching it.
Bottom Line Final Comments: Some might say I painted myself into a corner by insisting I stop returning to 2023 releases in order to focus on 2024, if that means the best thing I could come up with is Drive-Away Dolls; this guy, Adam (6:05 video, Spoiler-free), certainly thinks so, calling it the “Worst Coen Movie Ever!” (with lots of comments agreeing with him), which I certainly don’t embrace, but I must admit there are plenty of reactions that have little support for Coen’s effort, with the CCAC heading toward OCCU territory as the Rotten Tomatoes positive reviews are just 63% while the Metacritic average score is unsurprisingly-lower at 56%. Absolutely, … Dolls isn’t in the realm of such previous Coen successes as Blood Simple (1984, Joel Coen’s listed as director, but it’s known Ethan was the uncredited co-director [due to Directors Guild of America rules prohibiting co-directors until 2004] on all that I’m about to cite [except the last one where they’re both listed], just as Ethan says Cooke was his uncredited co-director [regarding Blood … though, Grand Jury Prize: U.S. Dramatic 1985 Sundance Film Festival, R.I.P. E. Emmet Walsh]), Raising Arizona (1987 [on Spike Lee's "Essential Films" list]), Barton Fink (1991 [Palme d’Or, Best Director, Best Actor—John Tuturro—at the 1991 Cannes Film Festival]), Fargo (1996 [Oscars for Best Original Screenplay—Coens—and Best Actress—Frances McDormand]), The Big Lebowski (1998 [2014 selection for the U.S. National Film Registry by the Library of Congress]), No Country for Old Men (2007 [Oscars for Best Picture, Best Directing and Best Adapted Screenplay for the Coens, Best Supporting Actor for Javier Bardem), and others, but I don’t find it nearly as useless as its harshest critics say it is, while again admitting the subject matter itself may be a turn-off for some audiences (excluding frequent lesbian sex, of course; not that there’s ever anything wrong with that).
Drive-Away Dolls opened in domestic (U.S.-Canada) theaters February 23, 2024, grossing about $5 million since (global $6.8 million), but you likely won’t find it on the big screen anymore, so if you’re interested you can explore streaming where you’ll find it’s free on Peacock Premium or rental for $19.99 on Google Play, YouTube (you can also buy it for that price from AppleTV+, Amazon Prime Video, Google Play, YouTube, or Vudu [at least that's the info on JustWatch today when I'm posting, but it was a bit different yesterday, so make what you will of this evolving (I guess) website, where its cluster of data is now considerably enhanced]; of course, when I looked it up last weekend it was only for sale on 3 of those platforms, so I’m now a proud [?] owner of it for more future viewings [?]).
However, even if you’re not inspired to watch … Dolls (with some marvelous scenery-chewing acting by Qualley, able accompaniment from Viswanathan and Feldstein, an enjoyable cameo from Damon) you might make-do with my usual review finale, the Musical Metaphor, which in this case will be Ben E. King’s version of “Stand By Me” (written by him, Jerry Leiber, Mike Stoller; a hit for King in 1961, on his 1962 album Don’t Play That Song) at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d Td2ylacYNU in honor of the growing relationship between Jamie and Marian as they come together (so to speak) during the course of the plot. (This particular video was a promo for [what became the beloved film] Stand By Me [Rob Reiner, 1986]), about 4 pre-teen boys and the mysterious death of a friend, with 2 of the actors—River Phoenix, Wil Wheaton—also in the video [seemingly getting a little bromance going, which could also allude to a female version of such in … Dolls].) Yet, this song’s been notably recorded by many others over the years, so in case you’d rather just listen to more versions of it rather than spend money on … Dolls I’ll give you a couple of them, first by John Lennon (on his 1975 Rock ‘n’ Roll album), then followed by Tracy Chapman (live 2015 performance on Late Show with David Letterman, included on her 2015 Greatest Hits album). I see such lyrics as “If the sky that we look upon / Should tumble and fall / Or the mountains should crumble to the sea / I won’t cry, I won’t cry / No, I won’t shed a tear / Just as long as you stand, stand by me” as plausibly-reflecting (metaphorically, remember?) on what Jamie and Marion endured on their East Coast journey, with conclusions neither expected as these circumstances continued to intertwine their lives.
SHORT TAKES
Related Links Which You Might Find Interesting:
Some options for you: (1) Writers Guild of America award winners are finally announced (see our March 7, 2024 posting for comparison to the Oscar nominees and winners where you will find some differences); (2) Top 10 highest-grossing horror movies; (3) 10 old Disney movies that have aged poorly (at least in this person’s opinion of their contents—click on the screen image to play the short video [1:55]; I thank my friend Barry Caine for connecting me to these latter two links).
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