Drive-Away Dolls review — Horny and gay party times

Directed by Ethan Coen | Written by Coen and Tricia Cooke | 84 min | ▲▲▲△△

There’s a scene late in the running in Drive-Away Dolls where one prominent, recognizable star throws the head of another prominent, recognizable star, which is in a box full of ice, down the street at the feet of a statue of Juan Ponce de León, the first European to land in Florida.

It’s a bizarre moment in a little, indie crime comedy. It would be reasonable to wonder how the hell a picture like this could afford these massive actors in brief cameos. The answer is: Ethan Coen.

Yep, one of two Coen Brothers, the two greatest American filmmakers of the past 40 years, made this movie. I’m sure that even with this Coen directing a film without his brother — Joel has also gone solo recently with The Tragedy of Macbeth — his reputation easily earns the attention of almost anyone in Hollywood. Writer Tricia Cooke, by the way, is a longtime Coen Brothers’ collaborator and editor who happens to be Ethan Coen’s wife.

They’ve come up with a trashy queer crime comedy that, while not entirely satisfying in comparison to the best of the brothers’ filmography, is still a hoot and a holler. What surprised this reviewer is, in this time of prudence, how delightfully sex-obsessed the film is.

It starts in 1999 Philadelphia, with Jamie (Margaret Qualley), deeply committed to her pleasure, having sex with a woman who isn’t her girlfriend in her girlfriend’s bed. When her girlfriend, a cop named Sukie (Beanie Feldstein), finds out about it she’s not happy.

Marian (Geraldine Viswanathan, who was so good in The Broken Hearts Gallery ) is also a lesbian but an entirely buttoned down one, sick of her office job and generally a fun sponge. Together, Jamie and Marion hatch a plan to drive to Tallahassee, Florida to visit Marion’s aunt and get out of things for awhile.

They pick up a drive-away vehicle, a Dodge Aries — I don’t know if you can still do this, but once upon a time you could rent a car for a single-direction trip, delivering it to another state.

It turns out this car has hidden in it an attache case and box (though I may have spoiled the contents of the box) of value to some bad men. This doesn’t keep the ladies from hitting as many queer bars on the way and making out with soccer teams full of women. Well, just one, actually. Apparently, the filmmakers wanted to call the picture Drive-Away Dykes, but couldn’t get away with it.

Qualley and Viswanathan’s characters have chalk and cheese chemistry, but both are so good you can’t help but root for them to find a way to turn this movie from a goofy caper about fresh-faced lesbians chased by lunkheaded gangsters (CJ Wilson, Joey Slotnick, and Coleman Domingo) into a full-on romcom.

I also found myself wondering whether Drive -Away Dolls was shot on weekends. Aside from a few establishing shots outside of hotels, bars, and on the freeway, the entire thing was clearly made on shoddily constructed sets. It looks cheap, and has no location authenticity or grit, which, given it’s a road movie with guns and heads in boxes really does it a disservice.

But, there’s plenty to enjoy in the film’s prurient undercurrent and oddly psychedelic interludes, flashbacks to the 1960s featuring an uncredited Miley Cyrus as someone named Tiffany Plastercaster. (If you recall the work of Cynthia Albritton, it’ll give you a clue to a major plot point.) It’s also ladled with a pile of 1990s gags for the Gen-Xers in the room.

In some ways the movie’s biggest debit is the past work of its filmmaker. While it very mildly resembles Fargo with its bumbling, arguing hard men, its got none of the Minnesota-based film’s gravitas or darkness. You know nothing terribly bad is going to happen to any of the nice ladies in this picture and it never threatens to get that deep.