Drive-Away Dolls could have you laughing out loud in a comically raunchy ode to 70s exploitation cinema. The premise has a pair of queer besties driving a automotive to Tallahassee, Florida; blissfully unaware of the mysterious briefcase within the trunk or the bumbling criminals sizzling on their path. Oscar-winning director Ethan Coen and his spouse, screenwriter Tricia Cooke, revel absurdly in a lesbian-fueled romp chock-full of hilarious B-movie characters. There are jaw-dropping surprises aplenty, however the script and its shenanigans admittedly lose steam regardless of a breezy runtime.
Set in 1999 earlier than the Y2K hysteria, Jamie (Margaret Qualley) is suspected of getting down and soiled with one other girl whereas on the telephone together with her girlfriend. The irate Sukie (Beanie Feldstein) has had sufficient of Jamie’s philandering methods and rampant promiscuity. She desires her out of their condo pronto. In the meantime, the sexually repressed and demure Marian (Geraldine Viswanathan) is bored with being hit on by lame males at work. She decides to get a “drive-away” job as a cheap technique of visiting her aunt in Tallahassee. Jamie has nowhere else to go, so she volunteers to come back alongside for the trip.
Marian and Jamie choose up a Dodge Aries from the acerbic Curlie (Invoice Camp) earlier than starting their street journey in earnest. Jamie has dutifully mapped all the nice lesbian bars on the route down south. Curlie’s gobsmacked when fixers Arliss (Joey Slotnick) and Flint (C. J. Wilson) stroll in a couple of hours later to get the identical automotive. The Chief (the sensible Colman Domingo) does not need to hear Curlie’s excuses. They’ve to search out the automotive earlier than the ladies uncover a silver briefcase hidden contained in the trunk.
Drive-Away Dolls
3/5
- Launch Date
- February 23, 2024
- Runtime
- 1hr 24min
- Hilarious screenplay
- Glorious central performances
- Uplifting message with out being too saccharine
- Regardless of a brief runtime, the film runs out of power towards the tip
- The raunchy jokes get drained
An Intriguing Set-Up
Drive-Away Dolls has sufficient debaucherous snogging to trigger chapped lips and a herpes outbreak. Jamie, in her loquacious Texas drawl, is obsessive about getting as a lot motion as attainable. She’s unrepentantly sex-positive on the fixed hunt for pleasure. The prim and correct Marian, who reads Henry James novels to chill out, is the polar reverse. Her lengthy dry spell shocks Jamie, who then makes it her mission to get Marian bedded. They’ve vastly totally different personalities however are each candy and likable. Their efforts to make one another glad result in a rising realization concerning the nature of a burgeoning relationship.
The antagonists even have fully disparate character dynamics. Flint likes to pummel his means ahead with fists and dripping machismo, whereas Arliss fancies himself a smooth-talking negotiator. The rub is that they’re each completely inept, so nobody takes them significantly till the beatdowns start. Their fixed bungling of the chase results in the exasperated Chief grabbing the reins. Fortunately, he additionally has Henry James to maintain his thoughts occupied.
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Unique: Geraldine Viswanathan & Beanie Feldstein Have a good time Queer Love in Drive-Away Dolls
Margaret Qualley and Geraldine Viswanathan go on a street journey with criminals and a jealous ex (Beanie Feldstein) on their path in Drive-Away Dolls.
Coen channels the slapstick humor of his classics Elevating Arizona and The Huge Lebowski with a salacious twist. The characters’ goofy forwards and backwards is regularly aided by completely bonkers sight gags. Drive-Away Dolls swings from purposely gratuitous nudity, trippy Miley Cyrus hallucinations (yup — you learn that proper), and the large suitcase reveal, which could have eyes extensive like saucers. It is all gleefully overblown for optimum comedic impact. Some would possibly say Coen veers into silly territory, however he declares his intentions within the opening scene. The movie does not take itself significantly, so that you should not both.
Huge Surprises in Retailer
Qualley steals the present with a wacky lead efficiency that fuels an general message of acceptance. Jamie’s hornball philosophy of feminine sexual liberation is not a destructive, she cheats on Sukie as a result of their coupling did not fulfill her voracious wants. Jamie’s not a participant attempting to govern emotions or damage anybody. She simply desires to get busy with each accessible engaging girl. STD considerations apart, Coen skewers the morality police by additionally representing the judgmental and hypocritical different facet.
Queer love is the movie’s integral theme. Coen and Cooke’s script addresses the precise of marriage equality. Because of this the movie is ready earlier than the twenty first century and the Supreme Courtroom’s legalization. An assault on this landmark choice is brewing with horrifying pace and energy. The message right here is that nobody ought to ever have to cover their emotions for an additional consenting grownup. Frankly, it is also none of your enterprise if that coupling is offensive.
Ethan Coen Explains How Drive-Away Dolls Is Completely different From Coen Brothers Films
Drive-Away Dolls with have one factor that motion pictures made by the Coen Brothers by no means do, in keeping with Ethan Coen.
Drive-Away Dolls sputters to the end line within the third act. The gags and gimmicks are now not humorous or stunning. That is a giant destructive contemplating it is solely eighty-four minutes. Detractors can fault the movie for being wildly uneven. Coen and Cooke clearly don’t have any scarcity of creativeness, so it is unusual they could not add extra spices to taste the stew, however the good right here far outweighs the unhealthy. Chances are you’ll even end up cramping up from an excessive amount of laughter, which is excessive reward.
Drive-Away Dolls is a manufacturing of Working Title Movies. Will probably be launched theatrically on Feb. twenty third, from Focus Options.
