| Focus Features | Release Date: February 23, 2024 | CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION | ||
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Positive:
22
Mixed:
24
Negative:
4
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Critic Reviews
The GuardianFeb 21, 2024
A wild detour chock-a-block with wild detours, Drive-Away Dolls comes from an artist regaining his capacity to take pleasure in the process, no matter if that means slackening the laser-focused perfectionist streak evident even in his earlier comedies. Contrary to its easygoing casual gait, this is an essential work in the Coen corpus, an evolution more than a regression or sacrifice. It’s the rare case in which a preponderance of dick jokes heralds a newfound advance in maturity.
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With Drive-Away Dolls, Tricia Cooke and Ethan Coen channel their influences and experiences into a tight, satisfying, humorous road movie. A knowing and humorous tone never loses its flair, with an artistic touch and commitment that makes you buy into the jokes in the first place. It is a refreshing comical experience threading together the absurd and the authentic.
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In many ways this feels like an update on the exploitation movies of the 1970s and '80s that played on drive-in theater screens before eventually making their way to VHS and late-night TV cult viewings. It’s Sharp Cheddar Cheese on Wry (sorry) and it’s a cool and breezy 84 minutes of fun.
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Though directed by someone who has been making movies for four years, “Drive-Away Dolls” feels like a young person’s movie, which is a good thing. It also seems like a movie directed by someone who grew up watching Tarantino movies, not Coen Brothers movies, which is unexpected but welcome, too.
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The Film StageFeb 21, 2024
Due to its relatively simple base pleasures, there’s a sense this madcap comedy will be dismissed for choosing nimbleness over pathos, but it is Coen and Cooke’s clear love for both B-movie tropes and the wonderfully game ensemble they’ve assembled that makes Drive-Away Dolls go down so easy. Even if one doesn’t fully connect with the attempts at humor, to see the film’s MacGuffin revealed––and precisely how it pertains to a certain supporting character––is ultimately worth the price of admission alone.
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The women in Coen brothers’ movies are usually the much smarter gender, as it is with “Dolls,” where Joel Coen and Cooke’s script creates a tight-knit relationship between its heroines that’s an absolute delight to watch, surrounded by goofball personalities and a healthy amount of campiness. It’s a playfully madcap turn on the “Thelma & Louise” model, and if Jamie and Marian decided to drive off a cliff, you’d want to be in that Dodge with them.
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Maybe this is just a whimsical trip with quirky characters and little depth. Maybe we’re never supposed to really understand or care about anyone’s motivation or background. There are great moments and a great idea here. Without that connective substance, though, the car gets stuck in neutral.
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In Drive-Away Dolls, almost every line is squeezed a bit too hard for cleverness, while the acts of violence frequently cross over into callousness. And although Qualley’s verbal dexterity is impressive (even if it owes a lot to Holly Hunter’s Edwina in Raising Arizona), her performance mostly made me eager to see what she might do in the future, with stronger comic material.
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The slight and scanty Drive-Away Dolls could dissipate with a gust of wind, but it beats a hasty getaway before that becomes a problem. While its story fails to justify its own existence, it delivers what it says on the tin: dumb, randy fun, even if that feels retrograde in more ways than one.
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Perhaps time will be kind to Drive-Away Dolls; the cast of rising stars seems destined for greatness, and the setting will sharpen into focus the farther we move away from the decade. But it’s hard not to feel that Drive-Away Dolls is the sum of its production history: a decades-old concept that missed its window for relevance.
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Ethan Coen’s road-trip comedy “Drive-Away Dolls” does not have that cinematic new-car smell. No, the stale scent is closer to months-old, unfinished McDonald’s Happy Meals and inexplicably maroon stains. The creaky vehicle has racked up so many miles, it barely starts. So tired and unappetizing, this dreadful film is.
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