Film Review: Drive-Away Dolls - Going South
To be upfront about it, the Coens are a bit of a cinematic blindspot for me. This may lose me my cinephile license but I haven’t seen The Big Lebowski, Raising Arizona, Fargo, No Country for Old Men, and so on. The only Coens under my belt as of February 2024 are their debut Blood Simple and writers-block classic Barton Fink, but rest assured, I aim to rectify this as soon as possible to preserve my integrity as a film critic. Perhaps it's this lack of Coen Brothers baggage that’s made me more amicable to younger brother Ethan’s solo feature debut Drive Away Dolls, which I’ve seen more than a handful of people outright dismiss for being helmed by the lesser half of the acclaimed writer-director duo. Or — and I feel this is more the case — maybe it’s the fact that a movie where two lesbians embark on a chaotic road trip together to the chaos-state that is Florida is something I would very much like to see.
On the eve of Y2K in Gay capital of the North East (Philadelphia), and lesbian besties Marian (Bad Education’s Geraldine Viswanathan) and Jamie (Hollywood It-Girl Margaret Qualley, an absolute panic here) are unlucky in love. Uninhibited free-spirit Jamie has just been broken up with by her cop girlfriend Sukie (Beanie Feldstein, the funniest I’ve seen from her since Lady Bird) while the uptight Marian is in the throes of a years-long dry spell, much to Jamie’s complete and utter horror. Together, the two decide to take advantage of a family visit Marian’s planned down south to Tallahassee and rent a car from a local drive-away for a much needed girls trip. As they detour to lesbian dive-bars, Papa Gino's pizzerias, women’s soccer team make-out parties, and scuzzy roadside motels along the way, the ladies are blissfully unaware that there’s unaccounted for passengers in the trunk of their rusty-bucket rental — the severed head of the Spaniard Santos (Pedro Pascal, sadly now in indentured servitude to Feige and Friends) and a mysterious briefcase intended for pick up by a pair of buffoonish gangsters (character actors Joey Slotnick and C.J. Wilson) at the behest of middle-man Chief (Oscar-nominee Colman Domingo dipping back into his Zola-persona).
Now, the main reason I want to encourage whoever is reading this review to go out and see this movie is the grand reveal as to what is actually in the much sought after briefcase. To be as vague about it as possible, it’s a “personal affect” belonging to conservative Floridian senator Channel (Dunkin Donuts spokesman Matt Damon), taken when he was a young hippie by Tiffany Plastercaster (Miley Cyrus in an uncredited cameo appearance) alongside a series of other “personal affects” from rich and powerful men. I fear saying anything more about the contents will give away the truly delightful surprise, although by the time this review goes up I imagine the internet will be saturated with memes and jokes about it. Either way, I was entirely unprepared for what it would be and spent the next several minutes grinning ear to ear holding my sides from laughing so hard. (Apologies to everyone who sat near me in the theater who had to hear my constant witch cackle throughout the screening, my bad.)
Penned by Coen and his wife Tricia Cooke (who edited several Coen Bros. features including Lebowski and O Brother, Where Art Thou?), Drive-Away Dolls was originally announced in 2007 under the (better) title Drive-Away Dykes, which should give you a clue as to the tone the film’s going for. Stylistically, it’s a screwball comedy of errors infused with the sensibilities of seventies drive-in fare, like a Russ Meyer flick by way of a nineties lesbian romcom. And clocking in at a breezy 80 minutes sans end credits, Dolls is an incredibly streamlined movie, speeding along from one scene to the next like its rapid-fire dialogue, often transitioning with cartoon sound effects and screen wipes that would make prequel-era George Lucas jealous. The tight runtime may make for a somewhat anticlimactic (but nonetheless funny) ending, but I was more than happy to be in and out of the movie theater before 9 pm on a weekday.
Focus Features has been on a roll lately distributing movies about horny, messy women and their wacky little hijinks undermining the phallic order: Poor Things is up for multiple Oscars, the already criminally underappreciated Lisa Frankenstein reanimated the weird teenage goth in my heart, and now Drive Away Dolls is sure to cause mass hysteria from lesbians clamoring to see Margaret Qualley talk like a King of the Hill character. While leaving the press screening, a group of older critics congregated around the theater entrance to debrief over what they just watched. From the bits of conversation I picked up, it sounded like a few of them weren’t into it either due to its crassness (a feature, not a bug!) or an apparent unfamiliarity with the sexual antics lesbians get up to when straight people aren’t looking. Speaking from experience, I can assure you that there’s a real desire from queer audiences for raunchy comedies if the success of last year’s Bottoms means anything whatsoever. Besides, there are plenty of serious queer films that depict queer lives as a never ending struggle against bigotry and identity, so why not give us a silly one every once in a while?
I imagine there will be some criticism towards Dolls if only for the fact that neither Cohen nor Cooke are clearly lesbians. Personally, I find the demand that filmmaking adhere to the strict parameters of identity politics to be incredibly limiting. It’s certainly true that stories written by and about women or queer people possess a level of authenticity that those who haven’t lived those experiences will never know firsthand. But Dolls isn’t trying to make any grand statements or political points apart from the fact that lesbians can be horny, impulsive freaks just like anyone else. Drive-Away Dolls is a thoroughly good time through and through, and even without the help of his older brother, Ethan proves more than capable of taking the wheel all by himself.