Drive Away Dolls – Review

“DRIVE AWAY DOLLS”

Drive Away Dolls is the first solo theatre film released by Ethan Cohen of the Cohen Brothers, and he co-wrote the screenplay with his wife. The story takes place in 1999 and is centred around two women, Jamie (Margaret Qualley) and Marian (Geraldine Viswanathan), the former of whom is running away from a very bad breakup with her girlfriend, and the latter is trying to meet up with some family members in Florida who agree to do a sort-of road trip.

During the trip, they discover that they have accidentally intercepted a car from a criminal gang that has some special cargo, and only after discovering this do they realise they have to work to save themselves.

Okay. So, if you’ve seen the trailer for this film, the only thing you haven’t seen is the contents of the case. That trailer is basically the whole movie- this film is phenomenally short, only coming up at an hour and twenty-five minutes. It doesn’t seem that interested in its own plot, and it felt like it was really rushing to get everything done. I really couldn’t tell that one of the Cohen Brothers was directing this, because it didn’t feel like it.

Some people said that this was a Tarantino wannabe film, and I have to agree.

Be aware that this film has a 15 rating here and an R-rating in America for a reason. There are lots of hardcore nudity and sex references in this movie, and the original trailer undersold that.

There were some funny moments, but as a whole, Drive Away Dolls is a film that’s just there. I have no strong feelings for it one way or the other. I’ve seen plenty of films like this that don’t have LGBTQ+ themes, so I’m glad there’s a film out there for that audience, but this film could have been so much better. It wastes the two big actors that were heavily advertised for this, Pedro Pascal was hardly in this, and Matt Damon is kind of the same.

What’s more, it’s not edited that well. It’s kind of all over the place. There were loads of segments that made no sense, for example, they have these psychedelic shots that don’t seem to mean anything, especially since this is set in 1999, not in the 60’s. Mind you, the 1999 setting doesn’t really do much of anything. I suppose it kind of makes sense for one plot element because of the presidential election that happens in the next year, but other than that, it’s only really because the women can’t be contacted so easily because of the technology back then.