When the Coen Brothers decided to amicably part ways in 2018 following their co-directed Western anthology The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, Joel Coen chose to veer into the Shakespearean route with 2021’s terrific The Tragedy of Macbeth. 

After heading up the uncompelling Jerry Lee Lewis documentary, Trouble in Mind, Ethan Coen has his first solo narrative feature under his belt with Drive-Away Dolls, which is just about as diametrically opposed tonally from his brother’s solo debut as possible. 

Clocking in at 84 minutes, Drive-Away Dolls hearkens back to sleazy B movies and exploitation camp of the ’60s and ’70s but retains the Coen crime components to which we’ve become accustomed. There’s blackmail, kidnapping, misunderstandings, and eccentric characters. There’s even a pair of thugs similar to the ones in Fargo who give chase to the pair of lead ladies.

The film stars Margaret Qualley as Jamie, a frisky and free-wheeling fun-lover with a Southern accent so daffy it calls to mind Nicolas Cage’s work in the Coen Brothers’ Raising Arizona. She’s just been kicked out of her girlfriend Sukie’s (Beanie Feldstein) apartment for sleeping around, so she crashes with her chaste friend Marian (Geraldine Viswanathan) until things cool off. Short on cash, the girls opt for a drive-away plan, which will allow them to take a much-needed road trip to Tallahassee without having to pay a rental fee for the car. Due to a mix-up, they’re given a car with sensitive payload that was meant for a different duo driving to Florida. A mob boss, played by Colman Domingo, slowly susses out the situation and tasks a couple henchmen with tracking down the car before Jamie and Marian find out what’s in the trunk.

The secret sauce in Drive-Away Dolls is the dialogue, particularly between the comedic foils of the gregarious, lascivious Jamie and buttoned-up, proper Marian. They begin the trip just as friends, but Jamie works tirelessly to pry Marian out of her shell and an intimacy eventually arises. As they bounce around lesbian bars with names like The She Shed and The Butter Churn, their humorous exchanges are peppered with colorful language that also reveals something a bit deeper about who they are and what they mean to each other. 

Elsewhere, the criminal characters similarly get their share of quippy lines from the screenplay by Ethan Coen and his wife, Tricia Cooke. At one point, Domingo’s kingpin character barks, “Stop saying words!” at his hapless subordinates over the phone.

At times, Drive-Away Dolls is more madcap than is advisable, and there’s a zany, cartoony aspect to the movie that overplays its hand at some points. It’s most noticeable in the intentionally kitschy scene transitions, where the frame flips around or a new shot screeches on top of another like we’re watching an episode of Home Improvement. The tips of the hat toward cult road comedies like Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! and Thelma & Louise work better because they more ably imply the spirit that Coen seems to be aiming for. 

Obviously, this is a film that naturally evokes female empowerment and is so matter-of-fact in its optimism and devil-may-care attitude that the energy is infectious. Qualley and Viswanathan seem to be on the same page, crafting comic characters with forgivable foibles who charm us as the miles roll along.

Beginning with the ominous opening scene, a few familiar faces (I won’t spoil who) turn up during Drive-Away Dolls in small but memorable roles. One such performer appears in a few psychedelic flashbacks that seem narratively unrelated when they occur, but their relevance is tied back as the movie’s conclusion draws closer. 

Though the movie takes place at the end of the ’90s with Y2K bearing down, most of the soundtrack reflects the unbridled spirit of the ’70s with cuts from Funkadelic’s “Maggot Brain” to Linda Ronstadt’s “Blue Bayou.” 

Qualley is still likely best known for her supporting role in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood as a hitchhiking hippie, and here, as Jamie, she’s able to reprise some of those same notes with some extra licks thrown in. 

Drive-Away Dolls is a sapphic sex comedy that may not carry the significance of the Coens’ joint works, but it’s a fun ride in its own right.

New movies coming this week

• Coming only to theaters is Dune: Part Two, a sci-fi epic starring Timothée Chalamet and Zendaya continuing the journey of an exiled duke who becomes closer with a group of desert-dwelling nomads and joins them in their fight against the conspirators who destroyed his family.
• Premiering on Netflix is Spaceman, a sci-fi drama starring Adam Sandler and Carey Mulligan depicting an astronaut who is sent to the edge of the solar system to collect mysterious ancient dust while trying to keep his psyche intact.
• Streaming on Peacock is Megamind vs. The Doom Syndicate, an animated superhero comedy starring Keith Ferguson and Laura Post about a reformed supervillain who assembles a new team to stop his former evil teammates’ nefarious plans.