by Oscar O’Sullivan

The Coen Brothers, Joel and Ethan, have not made a film together since 2018, when they released the western anthology The Ballad of Buster Scruggs. Since then, for reasons unknown, they have worked on solo ventures, and to date have written and directed a single film each. Joel’s effort came in in 2021 with his expressionist Shakespeare adaptation The Tragedy of MacBeth for Apple TV+. The film was critically acclaimed, and started a conversation that has continued until today: who is the more talented Coen. With the release of Drive-Away Dolls, Ethan has put the debate to rest. It’s Joel.

I’m being unfair, but it’s hard not to be underwhelmed when a film from the man behind The Big Lebowski feels like a second-rate homage to that same work. Dolls sets itself up as a B-movie throwback, a lesbian road-trip with sex, crime and psychedelic montage. In some ways, it succeeds in this goal. The opening scenes are especially promising. Pedro Pascal briefly features in a slasher send-up where he completely overacts the part of a paranoid stranger, delivering corny dialogue with gleeful abandon in a scene that wouldn’t be out of place in a Sam Raimi Evil Dead instalment. His OTT screams then cut directly into the introduction to Margaret Qualley’s lead character performing graphic cunnilingus on a, shall we say, vocally enthusiastic recipient. It’s bold, it’s bawdy, it’s right up in your face from the get go saying “this is real filth like back in the good and days!” Except, unfortunately, it isn’t.

Once the film kicks off in earnest, establishing the characters and the series of coincidences that takes them out on the road, nothing that follows lives up to the promise of it’s opening minutes. The dialogue continues to lay on the filth, but it’s all talk and no trousers, so to speak. The sex that follows is as chaste as you’d see in any other PG-15 movie today, while the promised violence entirely evaporates. Aside from some clever transitions, the camerawork and editing also begin to fade into the background, while the soundtrack is so lacking I struggle to remember if there even were any songs in it. The plot is also half-baked, taking unconventional characters and scenarios and railroading them into something that feels familiar and played-out. There are flashes of that earlier brilliance, but on the whole it’s like Ethan is asleep at the wheel.

So what does this film bring to the table after all that? It’s leads, for one. Margaret Qualley and Geraldine Viswanathan aren’t reinventing the wheel by any means, with their dynamic of a free-wheeling promiscuous goofball and uptight intellectual stick-in-the-mud being well-trod territory. What they bring to the table is an easy charm and surprising depth of emotion. Though far from a tear-jerker, the evolving relationship between the titular Dolls is the strongest plot line present, more compelling anyway than the nonsense conspiracy that provides the framework for the story. Also delightful to watch are the pair of hapless hitmen after the girls, whose sulky-versus-sensitive dynamic elevates otherwise perfunctory scenes into comedic highlights. In all the disappointment over what the film isn’t, there’s still something to be said for what it is, a fun, mercifully brief romance-adventure movie with a solid cast.

The Coen Brothers are, to me, maybe the most approachable directors for a budding cinephile. The balance of humour and drama is pitch-perfect across their work, they largely operate in popular genres, and the incredible craft of their films makes them a joy to revisit with fresh eyes. While I think MacBeth stands up with the best of their work together, Drive-Away Dolls reveals that something is missing on Ethan’s end without Joel to balance him out. Easily the worst film in their combined oeuvre, I think it succeeds just enough as a comedy to be worth going to if you want a little chuckle for ninety minutes, but maybe wait for streaming. Even then, it’s flirtations with filth might turn off a more prudish viewer, but if you can survive the first five minutes, there’s nothing here you won’t be able to stomach. An unfortunate 5/10, a perfectly adequate comedy from a director more than capable of greatness.