Josh Reviews Drive Away Dolls

Drive Away Dolls is set in 1999; two lesbian best friends decide to take a road trip from Philadelphia to Tallahassee.  Marian (Geraldine Viswanathan) is straight-laced and has been having trouble coming out of her shell, while Jamie (Margaret Qualley) is brash and outgoing, though her relentless flirting and cheating with other women has gotten her kicked to the curb by her former girlfriend Sukie (Beanie Feldstein).  What Marian and Jamie don’t know is that, due to a mixup, the car they rented from a local low-rent drive-away service has a case in the trunk that a bunch of criminal low-lifes are after.  Now Marian and Jamie are targets.

Drive Away Dolls was directed by Ethan Coen, who wrote the script along with his wife Tricia Cooke.  Ethan is, of course, one of the Coen Brothers, though after decades of collaboration he and his brother Joel now seem to be working separately.

I loved this film!  It felt to me like a wonderful flashback to early Coen Brothers films like Blood Simple.  It’d violent and dark, but it’s also very funny and filled with an array of delightful oddball characters.  (It’s also got a chatty pair of criminals/hit-men that reminded me pleasantly of Fargo.)

What feels fresh about this film (and different from those earlier Coen Brothers movies I just mentioned), is that this is the story of two female friends.  Both Margaret Qualley and Geraldine Viswanathan are terrific in the lead roles!  I was familiar with Ms. Qualley from The Leftovers, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood and The Nice Guys.  She takes a big swing here, putting on a Texan accent and fully embodying this confident, motormouthed young woman.  I loved her performance; she commands the screen, and it feels like she owns every scene she’s in.  That accent is a little cartoony, but Ms. Qualley keeps Jamie feeling very human and very real.  Ms. Viswanathan is every bit her equal.  I don’t believe I have ever seen Ms. Viswanathan before, but I’m now a huge fan.  She is spectacular as Marian.  In the hands of a lesser performer, Marian could also have been too cartoonishly nerdy, or just too flat and boring.  But Ms. Viswanathan gives her a vibrancy and an internal life that I found quite magnetic.  I was immediately rooting for both characters, and I enjoyed watching them make their way through this madcap adventure.

Co-screenwriters Ethan Coen and Tricia Cooke have been married since the nineties, but in reading about this film I was intrigued to learn that Tricia is queer, and in fact that she and Ethan based a lot of this script on Tricia’s real life.  (Click here to read lots more about Tricia and Ethan and this film’s interesting backstory.)  There’s a lot of specificity in the film’s deep dive into lesbian culture circa 1999 that I found very interesting to watch; that verisimilitude also helps keep the movie grounded despite some of the potentially absurd goings-on.

The rest of the film’s cast is A-plus.  Beanie Feldstein (Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising, Lady Bird, Booksmart) is a hoot as the tough-as-nails, take-no-bullshit Sukie.  She’s perfect in the role.  (And even though Sukie is at times an obstacle for Jamie and Marian, Ms. Feldstein admirably keeps her a character I enjoyed watching and was rooting for as well.)  Colman Domingo (Lincoln, Selma, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom) was terrific as the (never-named) criminal boss.  His smile!  His voice!  Magnificent.  I adored Joey Slotnick and C.J. Wilson (two character actors whose faces I suspect many viewers will recognize) as the bickering criminal henchmen Arliss and Flint.  Bill Camp (another wonderful character actor who’s appeared in many films, including Lincoln, Molly’s Game, News of the World, as well as in The Leftovers and The Queen’s Gambit) is wonderful in a small role as Curlie, who owns the drive-away car service.  (Curlie’s last line is haunting!!  I’m not kidding.)  Pedro Pascal (The Mandalorian) is quite funny in his very brief appearance in the film’s opening scene, and Matt Damon crushes it in a critical late-in-the-movie role.

At a very brisk run-time of only 84 minutes, the film zips along at an enjoyable pace.  There’s some violence and sex in this film that might not be for everyone, but I loved the way Mr. Coen and Ms. Cooke gave the film as entertainingly sleazy vibe.  This is a “B” movie pulpy story brought to life with “A” movie talent, and I thought it worked beautifully.  (I could have perhaps done without the bizarre, psychedelic sequences that pop up a few times in the film, though by the end their inclusion made sense.)  Be sure to pay attention to the end credits to learn the title that clearly Mr. Coen and Ms. Cooke wished the studio had had the guts to release it with.  (That was a fun surprise.)  If you’re a fan of the Coen Brothers, then you should definitely check this out and see what Ethan Coen and Tricia Cooke have created.

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