'Drive-Away Dolls' Is More Dumb Than Fun
More Farley brothers than Cohen Brothers, Drive-Away Dolls is a comedy from Ethan Coen where Joel's not involved with the film. And for good reason. This movie is cheap in humor and dull in delivery. Margaret Qualley, as Jamie, is annoying. Even if she's supposed to be it should only be irritating for the character she's bothering, not the entire audience. The film's premise is funny but could be handled under the care of the party it's representing. Drive-Away Dolls is a new low for Ethan Coen. It's not clever or well put together. The film mercifully has a short running time of one hour and twenty-four minutes, so you'll be able to get out of the theater early.
The story starts in Philadelphia in 1999. Jamie and Marian (Geraldine Viswanathan) Are close friends who couldn't be further apart in personality. Jamie is a sexually liberated, outspoken southern gal, while Marian is an uptight bookworm who's closed off. To help each other decompress, Jamie takes Marian on a road trip to Tallahassee, Florida. The girls rent a car from Curlie (Bill Camp) Camp, out of everyone in the film, drew the biggest laugh from me during the film.
Little do the girls know that they drove away with a suitcase that contains an item of great value. This item leads all the way to Congress. In pursuit of the suitcase are two goons, Flint (C.J Wilson) and Arliss (Joey Slotnick). The Goons work under The Chief (Colman Domingo). During the road trip, Jamie is going to try and get Marian laid as she hasn't had sex in years. It's the same premise as any teen comedy about obtaining sex, except this time it's a 90s throwback, and it's about lesbians fornicating. Either way, it's not as clever as it thinks it is.
Drive-Away Dolls was too sophomoric in its humor to win me over. And I like immature comedies. Happy Gilmore will forever be my favorite comedy. I love Jackass, and I will defend Grandma's Boy. I should be the target demographic for this movie, but it just didn't work. The movie tries to have a heart, but it's too conflicted to contain one. Ethan Cohen doesn't know if he wants to make a goofball comedy or a quirky indie film. It's also trying to tell the story of two lesbians who fall in love with each other from the perspective of a white man. Ethan Coen and his wife Tricia Cooke wrote a screenplay that's kind in sentimentality but falls flat underneath all the movie's wiener jokes.
The film does feel like a movie from one of the Coen brothers. It has flat, wide shots used during awkward conversations. There are quirky characters who have polite small-town mannerisms, and there's accelerated violence to add a level of shock to the film. The movie is stylistically like the Coen brother's collaborations, but it lacks the intellect the two make as a team.
What's in the briefcase is a joke as it's meant to be one. But really? That's the best they could come up with? The film is intentionally schlocky. That's extremely present in the flick’s terrible editing. Each scene has a cheap transition to them. I want to know if the editor took the window wipe transition from Adobe Premiere Pro and dropped it in between shots for the frame. Even if it's meant to look cheap, it's just lazy filmmaking. I don't need the screen to slide with a cartoony "WA BANG" sound to let me know we're onto the next scene. I'm an idiot, but I'm not a complete nincompoop.
Drive-Away Dolls is more of an afterthought than a film of passion. It's a movie where Ethan Cohen said, "You know that would be fun? If I made a slapstick comedy, that's also a lesbian love story about sexual liberation." The movie gets its point across. We shouldn't close ourselves off to the world but welcome it in. Marian needed to get herself out of her closet. Jamie is the person to do it. The idea of lesbians going on a sexually awakened road trip is a novel idea, but it doesn't really work when the whole movie goes for such low-brow humor.
