Drive-Away Dolls offers a fun lesbian road trip and not much else

The Coen brothers’ filmography is tragically straightforward. Praised for their stylistic breadth and wit, her films are rich and willing to play with gender roles in a way that welcomes queer readings – the spins of The Hudsucker proxy and the tongue-in-cheek choreography behind Channing Tatum’s dance numbers in Hail, Caesar! are among the many playful flourishes in which the space between individuality and intention is as large as the viewer wishes.

But direct stories for and about them and gays? Not her strength. But in Drive away dollsEthan Coen breaks away from his sibling and turns his first solo film into a great lesbian adventure, trying to pack a few decades of lost time into a single outrageous comedy. It doesn’t quite match, but it’s definitely a party.

Directed by Ethan Coen, co-written by Coen and his wife Tricia Cooke. Drive away dolls is a long-standing passion project of Cooke’s, a love letter to the (now dwindling) lesbian bar scene of her youth, set at the end of the millennium. The film follows two friends, the stalwartly relentless Jamie (Margaret Qualley) and the uptight Marian (Geraldine Viswanathan), on a road trip from Philadelphia to Tallahassee, Florida, stopping at wonderfully named queer hangouts along the way. (Think “She Shed” or “The Butter Churn.”) But Jamie and Marian are unaware that they rented a car that was intended for someone else and was carrying cargo that someone very important wanted.

Photo: Wilson Webb/Working title/Focus features

The last piece is the familiar stripe that runs through it Drive away dolls, the crime caper that those familiar with the Coen brothers’ work might expect. But in this case the caper is in something Cooke describes as “trassier” than Ethan’s collaboration with Joel. Another good way to describe it would be “more ruthless.” There is an exciting surrender Drive away dolls This contradicts the characteristic control the siblings are known for. The jokes are broad, the sex is raunchy, the scene transitions are crazy, and psychedelic interlude material drips in and out for almost no reason until the final part reveals a punchline that the audience may have no idea it’s being staged for.

All of this excess is incredibly fun, and it’s endlessly delightful to watch beloved actors like Pedro Pascal, Bill Camp and Beanie Feldstein immerse themselves in Jamie and Marian’s road trip. Overall, however Drive away dolls feels a bit light. The film doesn’t make much use of its historical setting – mostly the year (1999) fuels the plot, with the lack of smartphones serving as a persistent, plausible reason for the misunderst andings and misdirections behind the film’s capers.

Drive away dolls could have easily done more with its historical setting, if only to flesh out its two heroes. Qualley and Viswanathan are wonderfully cast as Jamie and Marian, but their dynamic is all too familiar: a free-spirited friend wants to help a prissy pal open up and perhaps meet a woman for the first time in three years. Maybe they would be happier together? Just kidding! (Unless…)

Photo: Wilson Webb/Working title/Focus features

Drive away dollsThe well-worn beats are underpinned by great style and care in the film’s production and costume design. All the attention to the era that isn’t fully present in the script comes through in the images instead. There isn’t much narrative structure to Marian and Jamie’s various stops – in particular, there isn’t much for Jamie or Marian to connect to. While the two interact frequently and amusingly on their journey, the people they meet are more or less cartoon characters planning a gag.

Likewise, it’s not particularly clear how Jamie even knows which bars she wants to stop at. The opportunities for Jamie and Marian to connect with the people in the places they go, to make the film live in the reality of how queer people found community in the pre-social media era, are slim. This lack of texture makes the film a sugary cocktail with pop rocks on the side, an overwhelming taste with arguably unnecessary crackle that’s hard to be mad at. If you’re looking for something deeper, feel like Chief (Colman Domingo), the fixer for the film’s villain (played by someone more fun discovering himself), who is after the briefcase that Jamie has and Marian unintentionally took with them.

Photo: Wilson Webb/Working title/Focus features

But this lack of substance is annoying Drive away dollsbecause the film does intersect with the political reality of its time and root its antagonists in turn-of-the-century “family values” politics and the way queer existence is labeled vulgar. Upon repeated viewing, this griping may turn out to be a void, as the thinness of the characters is only intended to make jokes, and the jokes do little to highlight the characters or the world they inhabit.

This doesn’t seem to bother Coen and Cooke too much, however, as they’ve created a film where being unashamedly gay and unashamedly gay is meaningful enough. This is probably the filmmakers’ most convincing argument Drive away dollsone in text form as the credits begin to explode on the screen, followed by the film’s original, less polite title: Road dikes.

Drive away dolls is now in the cinema.