Drive-Away Dolls: Film Review
The Coen brothers have always been hit or miss for me but Drive-Away Dolls is hit and miss within the same damn film.
The comedy caper, directed by Ethan Coen on his own, stars Margaret Qualley and Geraldine Viswanathan as lesbian best friends Jamie and Marian. They decide to hire a rental car and take a road trip from their home in Philadelphia to Marian’s grandma’s place in Tallahassee, Florida. Due to a misunderstanding, they are given the rental car meant for a bunch of criminals and drive off with their precious cargo. As you might imagine, chaos ensues!
Jamie and Marian couldn’t be more different. Jamie is a gregarious, chatty and charming Texan. She is highly sex-positive; she likes to hook up frequently and talk about her conquests loudly and proudly. Marian is buttoned-up, straight-laced and sexually inactive. I found it hard to believe they were best friends but their chalk-and-cheese vibe worked for comedy purposes.
This has been sold as a crime caper but it’s actually a love story between two friends – there’s a lot of sex and the crime subplot isn’t that important. Unfortunately, it really wasn’t funny enough. There were a few provocative zingers in the script and I laughed a handful of times, mostly in shock at something Jamie said, but it wasn’t particularly hilarious overall.
The film is so weird that I really didn’t know what to make of it. I oscillated between loving and tolerating it and between liking the characters and finding them really annoying. It is tonally all over the place and there are odd psychedelic dream sequences (I guess?) that I never understood the purpose of. To maintain the wackiness, there are unusual and almost whimsical transitions or jarring cuts between scenes (but I actually liked those).
The performances are fun to watch though. Qualley is a particular highlight as the scene-stealing Jamie. She gets into some interesting sexual situations and has no filter when it comes to discussing sex. She should have been more hilarious, but I blame the script for that. Beanie Feldstein is a delight as her angry ex Sukie and there are some excellent small appearances from Pedro Pascal and Matt Damon (not a spoiler, they’re on the poster).
Drive-Away Dolls, originally titled Drive-Away Dykes, should have been so much more entertaining than it was. What a shame.
In cinemas from Friday 15th March
It seemed to have all the right parts needed for a great film, but felt lacking. This review says it perfectly and as always, a great read.
Thanks for the lovely comment. That’s exactly how I felt about it!