Coen’s lesbian crime thriller lacks authentic madcap fun
I want to live in an alternate universe where “Drive-Away Dolls” is terrific — a sex-positive, violence-positive queer-sploitation gasser. In this universe? It’s just all right.
This is the first solo directorial project from Ethan Coen, brother and longtime creative partner of Joel Coen. Twenty-two years ago, Ethan wrote the screenplay with his wife, Tricia Cooke, who has edited many of the Coen brothers’ films. After a few close calls, it didn’t get made — until now.
Often a long-waylaid movie comes out of the drawer smelling a little musty. That isn’t the case with this one, or the problem. I hate to throw out something spoken by Joel Coen, who was not involved with the project, but he once said that directing is a matter of two words: tone management. “Drive-Away Dolls” constitutes a freewheeling mashup of crime thriller, an odd-couple friendship on the road to Tallahassee, Florida, and a dark comedy of errors. According to Cooke, the idea was to make a “lesbian genre movie” that felt playful, “free and fun.” It does when it’s working. When it’s not — when the brutality feels off, or the verbal jokes curdle — it doesn’t.
Jamie (Margaret Qualley) is the free spirit of the central duo, recently busted up with her humorless policewoman partner (Beanie Feldstein) and ready for distraction. Uptight, sexually inexperienced Marian (Geraldine Viswanathan) has plans for a road trip to Florida to visit her aunt.
Jamie invites herself along. After a mix-up with a guy called Curlie (Bill Camp, a welcome deadpan surrounded by smart actors straining for laughs), the women embark on a one-way drive in a used car containing mysterious items in the trunk they’re to deliver to an unknown recipient. It’s a mistake; the car’s intended drivers, criminals both, chase them all the way down to Florida.
Set in 1999, with Y2K jitters in the air, the movie runs 70-some minutes, hopping from episode to episode. Jamie wants to get Marian in bed with someone as soon as possible, just to break her dry spell. Colman Domingo pops in for a few scenes as the overseer of the two men (C.J. Wilson and
Joey Slotnick) in pursuit of the goods. Matt Damon shows up later as a rightwing senator potentially implicated by what’s in the suitcase. En route, Jamie and a reluctant Marian make out with an entire female volleyball team, and begin to realize the two of them might be more than friends.
The result sounds loose and inviting, but as directed by Coen, its brand of craziness feels clenched and methodical. I wish it were messier; we need more B movies unafraid of pulp and trashy diversion.
But straight off, in the prologue, there’s Pedro Pascal, a first-rate versatile actor, forcing his panicky reactions like a secondrater. How? Why? He’s so good! But not here. Only Viswanathan, wonderful in 2019’s “Hala,” comes close to finding a tone that makes some sense inside this wildly uneven material, careening all across the character-to-caricature spectrum.
MPA rating: R (for crude sexual content, full nudity, language and some violent content)
Running time: 1:24
How to watch: In theaters