Drive-Away Dolls: A Road-Movie Crime Comedy From Ethan Coen

(Updated 01/02/2024)

The Coen Brothers, Joel and Ethan, are the legendary filmmaking duo who made RAISING ARIZONA, THE BIG LEBOWSKI, FARGO, and NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN, just to name a few. The brothers went their separate ways a couple of years ago, and while they are reportedly developing another movie together, for the time being Joel and Ethan are working on their own projects.

The first movie from Ethan Coen is DRIVE-AWAY DOLLS. It’s an off-beat road movie comedy starring Margaret Qualley and Geraldine Viswanathan as two slightly adrift young women who cross paths with inept criminals. Check it out the first DRIVE-AWAY DOLLS trailer below, and we'll tell you more about this manic movie.

When Does Drive-Away Dolls Come Out?

Focus Features will release DRIVE-AWAY DOLLS in movie theatres on February 23, 2024.

Drive-Away Dolls Showtimes & Tickets

The Drive-Away Dolls Trailer Looks Like a Wild Blast

There's a familiar on-the-run road movie premise here, but you could say that many of the best Coen Brothers movies also begin with a familiar premise. Here we see two young women on the run from a bunch of not-so-capable bad guys — and that puts them into unpredictable situations with a cast of fantastic character actors.

The Sam Raimi Influence

Casual fans may not realize that the Coen and horror director Sam Raimi have been friends for decades. Joel Coen worked on Raimi’s THE EVIL DEAD. A few years later, the Coens wrote a movie called CRIMEWAVE, which Raimi directed. A decade later, Raimi was the second-unit director on the Coen Bros. Movie THE HUDSUCKER PROXY. So why is this important?

It goes back to CRIMEWAVE, released in 1985. The movie isn’t great but it does have a frenetic style rooted in B-movie comedy and exploitation. (Reportedly there were distributor edits made to the film that altered it significantly.) The style is also very much in evidence in the DRIVE AWAY DOLLS trailer. In fact, there aren’t many films that look like CRIMEWAVE, but this one certainly does!

The Long Road to Drive-Away Dolls

DRIVE-AWAY DOLLS is written by Ethan Coen, and editor/screenwriter Trisha Cook. (The two also happen to be married.) The original script penned by Coen and Cooke back in the mid-2000s. In 2007, Allison Anders (GAS FOOD LODGING) was reported as the director. Then the movie was described as a riff on drive-in exploitation movies like the films of Russ Meyer. That spirit is likely still part of the movie, as we can see from the trailer.

The Drive-Away Dolls Cast

As mentioned, Margaret Qualley (ONCE UPON A TIME… IN HOLLYWOOD) and Geraldine Viswanathan (BLOCKERS, "Miracle Workers") star in the leading roles. Then there are appearances from Beanie Feldstein as a cop (who was likely dating Qualley's character at one point) and Colman Domingo, Pedro Pascal, Bill Camp, and Matt Damon as some of the guys they run across.

DRIVE-AWAY DOLLS opens on February 23.

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All images courtesy of Focus Features.