Drive-Away Dolls review – a future midnight screening staple

Margaret Qualley and Geraldine Viswanathan star in a delightfully daffy road movie, written by Ethan Coen and his wife Tricia Cooke.

There’s a classic episode of Star Trek where a transporter malfunction causes Captain Kirk to be split into two copies of himself, each reflecting different parts of his personality: one is aggressive and impetuous; the other meek and subservient. These traits are accentuated by their separation from each other to a comic degree. We’re seeing a real-life instance of this with the professional split of Joel and Ethan Coen, who haven’t made a film together since 2018’s The Ballad of Buster Scruggs. Joel’s The Tragedy of Macbeth replicates the brothers’ capacity for sturm-und-drang drama as in Miller’s Crossing or No Country for Old Men. Absent entirely from that film was the recognisable Coens sense of humour; Ethan, thankfully, brought it with him when he went. Drive-Away Dolls revels in ridiculousness, allowing nothing serious get in the way of a good joke.

The film begins at the turn of the millennium, with two lesbian friends—shiftless Jamie (Margaret Qualley) and uptight Marian (Geraldine Viswanathan)—taking a road trip to Florida after a bad breakup rips through their social circle. They’re unaware that the trunk of their rental car contains items coveted by ruthless criminals and corrupt politicians, wrapping the pair up in a deadly conspiracy.

They’re unaware for most of the movie, in fact. The first half mostly sees Jamie trying to get Marian laid, as the two bumbling goons pursuing them meet a series of absurd dead ends. The gals’ constant good fortune becomes a joke in itself, like when Buster Keaton narrowly avoids being hit by a train. The film piles on cartoonish absurdities with reckless abandon. The edit transitions between scenes with a series of trashy screen wipes straight out of Windows Movie Maker, each one more ridiculous than the last. Then it introduces 70s-inspired kaleidoscopic interstitials featuring CGI laughing skulls and Miley Cyrus. Clearly, this is a film with no fear of kitschiness.

Speaking of fearlessness, the film is remarkably frank in its depiction of sex, with none of the tedious neutered yearning which haunts so much queer (and particularly lesbian) cinema. Like 2023’s Bottoms, Drive-Away Dolls shows that lesbians can be horny too, and not just in an abstract or coded way. While it’s become a bit trite to celebrate films for sex-positivity, there’s a refreshing directness here to the way sex is depicted as part of every character’s life.

The film’s tone relies on a committed cast. Qualley goes for broke with a comically thick Texas accent, laying thick every “sugar” and “honey-babe”. Viswanathan is more subdued by comparison, bringing amusing notes of smugness to her character’s introversion. In one of the film’s funniest images, Qualley brings a hookup back to their motel room and finds Viswanathan sitting bolt upright in bed reading Henry James, looking like Norma Bates and groaning an almost sinister “good evening.” Coen and Cooke mine gold, both comedic and romantic, out of this odd couple dynamic.

While Joel Coen’s solo directorial effort seemed to be missing his brother’s playfulness and whimsy, his brother isn’t suffering from a similar absence. Drive-Away Dolls bursts with the manic energy of a Looney Tunes cartoon. Joel may be shackled to dark, roiling dramas, but Ethan is making the film of a free man. It’s a rare treat these days to see something so breezy and unconcerned with trend-chasing in cinemas. It will surely be lost in the shuffle of bigger releases this year, but I look forward to seeing it at midnight screenings for years to come.

Published 12 Mar 2024

Tags: Ethan Coen Tricia Cooke