Drive-Away Dolls (2024)

Despite its fair to poor reviews, Jack and I really liked Ethan Coen's comedic caper about two lesbian best friends, one shy and the other cheerfully oversexed, who drive someone's car to Florida and are chased by hoodlums. Geraldine Viswanathan and Margaret Qualley are adorable as the odd couple Marian and Jamie and Beanie Feldstein is hilarious as Jamie's ex. Supporting roles include Pedro Pascal as a collector, Joey Slotnick as a goon, Colman Domingo as the goon's boss, and Matt Damon as a senator. Miley Cyrus appears in an uncredited cameo and I couldn't believe that the flashback of the senator with Cyrus was not a digitally altered Damon but a completely different actor, Jordan Zatawski (here's his photo).

Coen, who usually co-directs and co-writes with his brother Joel, takes the helm by himself, working from a script he co-wrote with his wife Tricia Cooke.

Carter Burwell's score, plus some songs, can be streamed on Apple Music and some of the many songs are available on an Apple playlist

Coen solo directed one other movie, a documentary. He was last blogged for The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, Viswanathan for Bad Education, Qualley for Once Upon a Time...in Hollywood, Feldstein for The Humans, and Pascal for The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent before winning the SAG award and more for starring in nine episodes of The Last of Us. Slotnick was last in these pages for They/Them/Us, Domingo for The Color Purple, Damon for Oppenheimer, and Burwell for The Banshees of Inisherin. 

Cyrus, who has a million music videos to her credit, has been in eight other movies, starting with Big Fish (2003) at age ten. The Coen brothers usually edit their movies under a pseudonym but Cooke edits this one under her own name after almost two dozen other editing credits. This is her feature screenwriting debut.

As noted above, Rotten Tomatoes' critics are in the back seat with an average of 64%, while its audiences are looking for another ride at 36. We rented it on March 13 on Apple TV. It's R-rated for sexual situations and Coen-level cartoonish violence.