So, one of the Coen brothers made a new film, one unlike anything I've seen out of the Coens before. Since the brothers split up to make solo projects, Joel made "The Tragedy of Macbeth" with Denzel Washington a few years ago. And now Ethan has made "Drive-Away Dolls," co-written with Tricia Cooke, and it is something completely different. It's a comedic crime film that takes place in the year 1999, starring a same-sex Odd Couple - foul-mouthed, promiscuous Jamie (Margaret Qualley), and buttoned-up Marian (Geraldine Viswanathan). On a road trip from Philadelphia to Tallahassee, the two of them accidentally come in possession of certain property that belong to a couple of mobsters, and most of the movie involves the ladies being chased around by the bumbling duo of Arliss (Joey Slotnick), and Flint (CJ Wilson), under orders from their irate Chief (Colman Domingo).
There's a lot of sex and nudity in the film, to the point where I have to declare this the raunchiest Coen movie by a pretty considerable margin. A lot of the adult content is played for laughs, and the laughs are good, but it was still a shock to see how filthy the film was willing to get in the opening act. Things calm down once the plot gets underway and Marian comes into focus as the main character, but the proceedings remain persistently horny throughout. Jamie is determined to get Marian to stop being prude and get laid, sex toys are a plot point, and we have several flashbacks to Marian's sexual awakening, featuring a sunbathing neighbor. The hyper-verbose dialogue and Marian reading a Henry James novel during the trip signal that this is in fact a Coen film - "Burn After Reading" has a similar vibe - but it took me quite a while to adjust to the prurient tone enough to enjoy the movie.
And I did enjoy the movie, despite its wild aesthetic swings and aggressive sexual proclivities. There's a lot of experimentation with style, like the use of cartoonish scene transitions that doesn't really work, but it feels like something that Ethan Coen has been itching to try for ages, and good for him. Tackling a story about a pair of twenty-something lesbians sometimes feels like a bridge too far for Coen, and he can't quite shake a sense of male gazeyness, but when the film works, it works. Qualley and Viswanathan are excellent in lead roles that let them make use of their considerable comic talents. However, if there's a character we're going to add to the pantheon of great Coens characters, it's gotta be Jamie's emotional ex, Sukie (Beanie Feldstein). She handily steals every scene she's in, and consistently gets the biggest laughs. It's worth watching the movie just to watch her go to work.
On to "Lisa Frankenstein," a throwback creature feature about a high school outcast named Lisa (Kathryn Newton) who ends up in a destructive romance with a reanimated corpse (Cole Sprouse). This is the feature debut of Zelda Williams, with a script by Diablo Cody. Like many Cody heroines, Lisa is very imperfect, and goes from sympathetic heroine to murderous anti-heroine with a few gnarly makeovers in between. As a "Frankenstein" pastiche, it is very tame stuff, and the romance isn't much to write home about. However, I thought that "Lisa Frankenstein" was excellent as a throwback to 1980s genre films.
Most of Lisa's troubles stem from the recent death of her mother, and her father Dale (Joe Chrest) having remarried Janet (Carla Gugino), a woman with a daughter named Taffy (Liza Soberano). Taffy is the same age as Lisa. The satirization of '80s suburban family dynamics are perfect - oblivious father, monstrous stepmother, and bimbo cheerleader stepsister - who despite everything is actually quite nice to Lisa. However, being uprooted and forced to move to a new school puts a still-grieving Lisa at the bottom of the high school pecking order. And because this is an '80s high school, the student body is remarkably insensitive and boorish. The filmmaking is also period appropriate. Aside from a few fanciful touches like an animated opening sequence, "Lisa Frankenstein" feels far more like something made in the '80s than most throwbacks, especially the shot composition and the pacing. The low budget aesthetics and narrative messiness actually help to make it feel more authentic.
"Lisa Frankenstein" is less about the monster than I expected, who is mostly used for humor instead of horror. He gets almost no dialogue, and there's not much effort put into the romance. I like Kathryn Newton as Lisa, but the material she's given isn't great. The movie is a lot of fun when it really leans into its absurdity, but only Carla Gugino manages to really hit the level of camp that I was hoping for. The movie is a fun watch, but only in fits and starts, and only if you're willing to ignore a lot of mediocrity. This will probably be best enjoyed by angsty teenage girls and those of us who used to be angsty teenage girls. That's a pretty underserved audience, so I count the existence of "Lisa Frankenstein" as a win.
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