I made a flippant joke when I saw the poster for Drive Away Dolls (dir Ethan Coen) where I called it two girls, one car. If you get the reference you have watched a horrific piece of internet history… however, I wasn’t too far off with my joke, which made me slightly proud.
Drive Away Dolls opens in Philadelphia in 1999 and centres around Marian (Geraldine Viswanathan) who is a neurotic sexually shy lesbian surrounded by her much more sexually liberated friends, especially Jamie (Margaret Qualley).
In a desire to leave the malaise of her current life, Marian decides to drive to Tallahassee, Florida – and Jamie, after being found cheating on her girlfriend – decides to join her. To drive down they use a car service to relocate car rentals. In a miscommunication with the service provider, they are given a car that some criminals are looking for.
Ethan Coen of the Coen Brothers has ben involved with movies such as The Big Lebowski, O Brother Where Art Thou?, Fargo, and No Country for Old Men. He is no stranger to quirky and idiosyncratic films sprinkled with crime and murder.
The film feels like a throwback to the late 70s and early 80s coming-of-age films when young men are trying to sleep with women or at least see them naked. The lesson from most of those films is to not be a dirty creep and you will have better chances with ladies.
Luckily, we as a society have come so far and this film follows similar beats where Jamie is trying to Marian to loosen up and be more sexually free and takes her to make sexual situations and encounters (the people next to me in the screening actually got up and left in one of these scenes). It is 2024 and women can be dirty creeps now too; what a wonderful world.
Like with other Coen films, the dialogue is whip-smart and Qualley is excellent as Jamie, talking non-stop and having a comeback for every objection. Viswanathan is the heart of the film and does a great job carrying the emotional load to Qualley’s charisma.
There are a few cameos from some Hollywood heavy-hitters which are a bit of fun and the story goes off at a good pace. My only complaint is that the ending felt unearned. Things resolved themselves mostly without the main characters learning something to overcome the issues.
But like those early 80s films, you really don’t need to think too deeply about it. It is a bit of fun, with some interesting characters -just don’t go if you are super against women’s sexuality or dildos- did I mention dildos? There are dildos.
28 February 2024
Luke McMeeken-Ruscoe