Year: 2024

Runtime: 84 minutes

Directed by: Ethan Coen

Written by: Ethan Coen and Tricia Cooke

Starring: Margaret Qualley, Beanie Feldstein, Geraldine Viswanathan, Connie Jackson, Bill Camp, Pedro Pascal, Colman Domingo, C.J. Wilson, Joey Slotnick, Matt Damon, Miley Cyrus

By Sarah Manvel

Sometimes having too much money is a bad thing. If “Drive-Away Dolls” had been made by a bunch of nobodies on a shoestring budget with nothing but their enthusiasm, it would have been adorable. But it was made by Ethan Coen, one of America’s most celebrated filmmakers, and features some of the biggest stars in modern Hollywood. On a shoestring its super gay plot, highly sexual chitter-chat and willingness to bend the lines of good taste would have added up to more than a hill of beans. But when there’s this much money involved, being that slapdash is unforgivable. 

Jamie (Margaret Qualley) is introduced between the legs of a nice young lady who is not her girlfriend Sukie (Beanie Feldstein). Marian (Geraldine Viswanathan) is introduced fending off the advances of a work colleague who clearly doesn’t know she is a lesbian. But the uptight Marian is about to snap, and so walks away from her job – it’s 1999, when such things were no big deal – for a vacation with her Aunt Ellis (Connie Jackson) in Tallahassee. Now that Jamie is suddenly single again she invites herself along, and suggests they travel by virtue of the ‘drive-away’ – that is, driving someone else’s car to the place where the car needs to be. By great good fortune, or the script, they arrive at the drive-away place just as owner Curlie (Bill Camp) is needing someone to go to Tallahassee, so off they pop, never realising that Pedro Pascal’s severed head is in a hatbox in the trunk. And so is a suitcase, which is of greater importance to a scary man (Colman Domingo), his goons (C.J. Wilson and Joey Slotnick), and Senator Gary Channel (Matt Damon) than the severed head.

In case you forgot, the severed head reminds you this is a Coen movie – not the Coen brothers this time – as does the fact that Jamie is a fast-talking, folksy prattler full of steamroller enthusiasm to help Marian enjoy her vacation, if you know what I mean. Marian, whose idea of a fine night is reading Henry James in bed, is not so much bowled over by Jamie’s personality as smothered completely. And the severed head is treated as just another comic prop instead of a disgusting and traumatising evidence of a serious crime. It’s worse than when Steve Buscemi was incompetently fed through a woodchipper in the Coen brothers movie “Fargo”(1996), because this time the joke is not the awfulness of the crime. The head itself – Mr Pascal’s character doesn’t have a name – is the joke. And this kind of outrageous violence is not funny anymore, there being so much outrageous violence in American daily life that it’s pretty damn sour to see it as a punchline in art.

What “Drive-Away Dolls” wanted to be was a fun lesbian road movie (the final credits are clear the ‘dolls’ of the title was originally ‘dykes,’ not that anyone uses that word anymore) with plenty of amusing hijinks and hot lady action. And while there’s some of both, cinematographer Ari Wegner films it all so tastefully that it takes a while to realise there’s barely any nudity. And there’s so much colorful chatter it takes a little longer to sink in none of the characters are working blue. Considering how many, ahem, sex toys are waved around it’s surprising to realise that none of them are shown in a sexual manner, not even when Miley Cyrus has her uncredited cameo. And while that ratings-board trickery is lots of fun to make, that doesn’t make it fun to watch. 

One wonders if co-writer Tricia Cooke, who also edited, and who makes great use of the screenwipe, actually wrote this script 25 years ago and has just been biding her time. Certainly there’s mainstream acceptance now of the antics shown, but back then not even the most cocksure lesbian would have been willing to risk slowdancing with another woman in a crowded hotel bar, at least not without a straight razor on her person. But the young lesbians who might hoot and holler at this movie weren’t born then, so don’t remember the courage it took, and the very real risk you were taking, to put a gay-rights sticker onto your credit card.

And if you can forget about the severed head, “Drive-Away Dolls” is indeed a hoot and a half. But since you can’t, there’s plenty of time to consider how much better its self-conscious cleverness would have landed from a bunch of attention-seeking nobodies (remember “Go Fish” (1994)?) instead of a bunch of major players who aren’t even seeming to be having much fun. It feels a lot longer than its 84 minutes, and the audience at the Glasgow Film Festival surprise screening didn’t laugh much. For a supposedly silly sex comedy, that’s quite deflating.