Drive-Away Dolls lets Ethan Coen embrace his inner queer punk

polygon.com:

The Coen brothers’ filmography is tragically straight. Acclaimed for their stylistic breadth and wit, their films are rich and willing to play with gender roles in ways that welcome queer readings — the screwball hijinks of The Hudsucker Proxy and the winking choreography behind Channing Tatum’s dance numbers in Hail, Caesar! are among the many playful flourishes where the space between quirk and intent are as wide as the viewer wants it to be.

Outright stories for and about theys and gays, though? Not their strong suit. But in Drive-Away Dolls, Ethan Coen peels away from his sibling to make his first solo feature a grand ol’ lesbian romp, trying to cram a few decades of lost time into one outrageous comedy. It doesn’t fully cohere, but it sure is a party.

Directed by Ethan Coen and co-written by Coen and his wife, Tricia Cooke, Drive-Away Dolls is a long-gestating passion project of Cooke’s, a love letter to the (now dwindling) lesbian bar scene of her youth, set at the end of the millennium. The film follows two friends, the unflappably relentless Jamie (Margaret Qualley) and the uptight Marian (Geraldine Viswanathan), on a road trip from Philadelphia to Tallahassee, Florida, stopping at wonderfully named queer haunts along the way. (Think “She Shed” or “The Butter Churn.”) But Jamie and Marian don’t realize they rented a car meant for someone else, carrying cargo that someone very important wants.

That last bit is the familiar streak running through Drive-Away Dolls, the crime caper those familiar with the Coen brothers’ work might be expecting. But in this case, the caper is ensconced in something Cooke describes as “trashier” than Ethan’s collaborations with Joel. Another good way of describing it would be “more reckless.” There’s a thrilling abandon to Drive-Away Dolls that runs counter to the characteristic control the siblings are known for. The jokes are broad, the sex is lewd, the scene transitions are loony, and psychedelic interstitial footage drips in