DRIVE-AWAY DOLLS (2024) ¢ ¢ 1/2
D: Ethan Coen
Margaret Qualley, Geraldine Viswanathan,
Beanie Feldstein, Bill Camp, Colman Domingo,
Joey Slotnick, C.J. Wilson, Matt Damon
The first movie Joel Coen made without his brother Ethan was an Oscar-nominated adaptation of "Macbeth". The first movie Ethan Coen made without his brother Joel was . . . this. It's a lesbian road movie about two women (Margaret Qualley and Geraldine Viswanathan) who take off in a drive-away Dodge going from Philadelphia to Talahassee, with detours and stops along the way. There's a metal suitcase in the trunk of the car, and they don't know what's in it at first, and then they find out. There's some good, funny writing in the exchanges between the two women, and in the parts involving Bill Camp as the guy at the drive-away place, but it's a sloppy movie - in contrast to everything else the Coens have done - and it looks like something some teenager shot on Super 8. Qualley takes a rapid-fire delivery and a biscuits-and-gravy accent and dials them up to eleven. She's balls-out from start to finish, and Viswanathan's cautious, composed demeanor is the counterpoint to that. Yin and yang, I guess. Matt Damon has a cameo as a Florida senator with a particular interest in the contents of that suitcase, and you can't help thinking that maybe he made a bet with his pal Ben Affleck and the loser had to be in this movie. Bad luck, Matt.
