Among the many thousands of little joys of film, there is nothing quite like experiencing a new Coen Brothers film for the first time. It’s a feeling like nothing else, a novelty, cinematic reinvention that maintains a warm, familiar confidence. Two of the greatest American filmmakers, each new film its own spellbinding universe of intricately designed conversations and narrative threads, flooded with vibrant characters and mesmerizing filmic haze. Over four decades of work with a legacy of brilliance, from the sweltering creative chaos of Barton Fink (1991), to the farcical absurdity of The Hudsucker Proxy (1994), the snowy midwestern intrigue of Fargo (1996), the sawdust Homeric adventure of O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000) and the icy fury of No Country For Old Men (2007), to the poetic beauty of Inside Llewyn Davis (2013), their work has done all but stagnate. The only way to reinvent such a perfectly designed wheel is to create something new entirely. Now, five years after it was first announced that Joel Coen would direct The Tragedy of Macbeth (2021) without his brother, we have Ethan’s first solo effort – a gauzy, sapphic, psychedelic road trip that brings the same, unmistakable, delirious joy as every other Coen experience.
There’s something incredibly charming about how vastly different Joel and Ethan’s recent individual efforts are, a contrast so stark it becomes vibrantly clear how these two ideas about how films should look and feel would come together to make such a holistically stunning, decades-spanning career. Better still this realization does not diminish these individual efforts, which both remain stunning examples of the power of film. Joel’s Macbeth is a stark, cold dream, a woozy but restrained effort that evokes a grand, powerful atmosphere. Drive-Away Dolls is its antithesis (though not absent the literary influences), an outrageous romp careening down the interstate with the brake line cut free. Like De Palma directing a slapstick neon noir, Ethan Coen deploys every cinematic flourish at every possible turn and cranks the dial all the way from unashamedly goofy to unhinged absurdity without missing a beat.
A man is dead – decapitated with cartoonish brutality down a dark alley shot with aggressive, emphatic Dutch angles. The murderers make off with a metallic MacGuffin briefcase that looks like it contains Marcellus Wallace’s soul. A crime, mysterious treasure, hints of some foggy underground criminal organization – an unmistakably Coen cold open. Less familiar is the hard cut to passionate intercourse that follows, Margaret Qualley’s Jamie trying to listen to an incoming message from her friend Marian (Geraldine Viswanathan) on her answering machine amidst the orgasmic screams of the woman underneath her. Concisely introduced as polar opposites in first moments on screen, two mid-20s feminists navigating the hazy pastel neon nineties. Jamie a bubbly, boisterous, enthusiastic free spirit with a southern twang who’d like to take home every woman at every lesbian dive bar in America; and Marian a quiet, demure political activist who still hasn’t gotten over the girl she dated working for Al Gore.
After Jamie’s girlfriend Sukie (Beanie Feldstein) finds out who else she’s been taking home and breaks up with her and Marian finally gets fed up with her stagnant life, the two decide to embark on a trip to Tallahassee from the northeast. A leisurely drive-away down the east coast, a map dotted with every lesbian hangout and dive, and a stack of Henry James novels – what could go wrong, unless you happened to take the wrong drive-away from the absent-minded steward of Curlie’s and unwittingly ride off into the sunset with a mysterious briefcase being hunted down by a spider-web crime syndicate concealing a dark conspiracy. And so you get a Coen film, everyday protagonists stumbling into the middle of theatrically grandiose crime narratives, caught up in chaos and confusion, constant hilarity and a laundry list of brilliant character performances.
Written by Ethan alongside his wife and editor Tricia Cooke, the film’s dreamy female gaze aesthetic and sensibilities meet rapid fire madness, razor sharp wit, and an entrancing, flowy haze, a love of the purity of film that just spills out into the screen and takes it wherever it feels necessary. Smash cuts, scenes flying into each other with a cartoonish screech, hallucinogenic dream sequences with shifting aspect ratios and melted colors, a psychedelic fever of whatever feels right because it doesn’t need to be all so serious. Everything about Drive-Away Dolls is like a breath of fresh air – rhythmic dialogue with charming dry snark that isn’t self-effacing or metatextual, breezy effortless direction with confidence entirely placed in the magic of the moving image, absurd plotting, bright ‘90s nostalgia, a dash of ‘70s exploitation, and an insatiably horny sapphic tilt that cleverly pushes your own expectations by remaining shockingly empathetic and mature only to make the film’s final crux as hilariously juvenile as you possibly could without undermining your own efforts. There’s nothing quite like experiencing a Coen brother’s film for the first time.