Drive-Away Dolls

Drive-Away Dolls‘ quality depends very much on what group you’re comparing it to. Compared to the increasingly obscure indie movies that make up the majority of my WLW movie watching these days, Drive-Away Dolls is above average. But compared to the other works of one or more Coen brother, the film would rank near the bottom. Luckily, a lesser Coen film is still a decent time. But this movie isn’t really on the same level as some of the classics that director Ethan Coen has given us along with his brother, Joel.

Drive-Away Dolls takes place in a version of 1999 where homophobia still exists, but is a more sex and queer positive version of that year than the reality. Texan wild child, Jamie has just broken up with her girlfriend, Sukie due to Jamie cheating on her. Following the breakup, Jamie wants to get out of town and piggybacks on her friend, Marian’s plans to head to Tallahassee. The two women’s road trip is complicated due to the fact that the car they’re driving has two unusual items in the trunk. The first is a decapitated head. The second is a metal briefcase with surprising contents. There’s a criminal element after these objects and they will get them back from Jamie and Marian at any cost.

Coen is firmly within his wheelhouse with this crime dark comedy. Which is one of the reasons it’s most easy to compare this to his previous work. The duo of men in charge of tracking Jamie and Marian feel extremely similar to Steve Buscemi and Peter Stormare in Fargo, for example. But again, compared to some of these classics, Drive-Away Dolls doesn’t hold up. There’s not enough darkness to this crime comedy. Partially due to the short runtime, the film never strongly develops the crime elements specifically. And this means that the film lacks a major threat. The reveal of what’s in the metal briefcase further exemplifies this. It’s a funny reveal, yes. But it does prove that this movie skews more pure comedy than crime or dark comedy.

Coen co-wrote the film with his wife, Tricia Cooke. While the two are still married, Cooke is a lesbian and both have new romantic partners. I think it’s kind of sweet they seem to have replaced their romantic partnership with a creative one. Though this is far from the first time the two have collaborated. Cooke worked as an editor on many of the Coen brothers’ films as she does for Drive-Away Dolls. Which makes it all the more baffling how bad the editing in Drive-Away Dolls is. Sometimes, it goes so over the top that it’s clearly a stylistic choice. One I don’t love and don’t find congruent with the rest of the movie, but sure. But when it’s not over the top, it’s just bad. The scene transitions are constantly obnoxious and make the movie look even lower brow than it already is.

I enjoy the film’s focus on sex positivity. The film has a focus on female pleasure. All the lesbians in this film seem to enjoy being a lesbian. Also, they have a lot of sex. Was it actually this easy to find a lesbian makeout party in 1999? If it was, I gotta invent time travel. Leading the charge of sex-having lesbians is Margaret Qualley as Jamie. To my knowledge, Qualley is not actually queer. Nor is she from Texas. And as much as she worked hard to portray this horny lesbian Texan, the problem is that you can always see the effort. It might’ve worked better had they cast an actress who was either sapphic or Texan. Doing one or the other probably wouldn’t be a problem, but portraying both elements when you’re neither seemed to bring Qualley’s performance to a place of artifice rather than authenticity.

By Coen’s own admission, Drive-Away Dolls is a B-movie. So, that maybe explains why it’s not his best or certainly, smartest work. But I still wish the movie was better. Drive-Away Dolls felt like it was almost there. But its short runtime and lack of focus cuts into the admittedly entertaining story. There are some laughs to be had, but because I’m familiar with Coen’s work, I want better from him. Apparently, this is the first in a trilogy of sapphic B-movies he and Cooke have planned. Despite my tepid review, this is still great news for me, a lesbian who loves the Coen brothers and genre cinema.

Overall rating: 6.2/10

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