Pedro Pascal Swindles, Margaret Qualley Twangs in Slick First Look at Ethan Coen’s ‘Drive-Away Dolls’

Ethan Coen’s latest solo project just shifted into high gear, showing its first trailer at CinemaCon 2023.

“Drive-Away Dolls,” a road movie about restless best friends and hapless crooks, is the latest from the co-director of modern classics “No Country for Old Men,” “Inside Llewyn Davis” and “Fargo.”

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During the Focus Features section of Universal’s presentation at the annual convention of movie theater owners, the audience was served up a sleek and sexy road noir with a major ensemble: Margaret Qualley and Geraldine Viswanathan leading, along with Beanie Feldstein, Pedro Pascal, Colman Domingo, Bill Camp and Matt Damon.

Coen, on his own without longtime collaborator and brother Joel, directed and co-wrote the script with Tricia Cooke. The movie follows Jamie, a free spirit mourning her latest breakup, and Marian, a wallflower in desperate need of adventure. The pair embark on a spontaneous trip to Tallahassee, but things quickly go awry when they cross paths with a group of inept criminals.

Pascal is a besuited man holding a coveted briefcase with unknown contents. Qualley rocks a steep Southern accent as a lady whose heart has just been broken. “I don’t believe in love,” she vents to bestie Viswanathan. “I know bards and troubadours are high on it, but its not relevant to the 20th century lesbian.”  A mixup at a car rental center sets the cast on a collision course of violence, sex and mistaken identity.

Cooke, married to Coen, worked as an editor or associate editor on many of the Coen brothers’ films, including “O Brother, Where Art Thou?” and “The Man Who Wasn’t There.” Focus will distribute the project in the U.S. with Universal Pictures International handling foreign territories. Producers include Robert Graf and Working Title’s Tim Bevan and Eric Fellner.

The film is set for release this September.

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