I hate to start it like this, but in this case, I kind of have to. So here goes. How much do you like to see girls make out… with each other? If that’s something you’re into you will really get a kick out of Drive-Away Dolls.
The movie has a bit more going on than that. There’s intrigue, suspense, a lack of appreciation for Curlie whose name you’re not familiar enough to use, and so much of what has made Ethan Coen and his brother such luminaries of modern filmmaking. They go as far back as the 80s with Raising Arizona starring Nicholas Cage, the 90s with The Big Lebowski, the 00s No Country For Old Men, the 10s with True Grit, and splitting up with his brother to make this movie as well. They have 13 Academy Award Nominations and Ethan Coen shook that up with his over 40 years of success in film to make Drive-Away Dolls with his wife Tricia Cooke. Honestly, if their bedroom is as hot as this movie is, I can see why they’ve been married since 1990.
The Drive-Away Dolls
Drive-Away Dolls was written by directed by Ethan Coen and written by him and his wife Tricia Cooke. We start in Philadelphia in 1999 in a bar where a man named Santos (Pedro Pascal) is holding a briefcase like his whole life will fall apart if anyone touches it. After that, we’re quickly taken to the first sex scene where Jamie (Sarah Qualley) and Sukie (Beanie Feldstein) do things to each other that they seem to like very much. While they are trying to enjoy the moment, they keep getting calls to their answering machine from Marian (Geraldine Viswanathan) asking about a party but being dressed like she came from a funeral.
From there, we’re treated to Jamie and Sukie’s break up. Jamie is originally from Texas where and is a bit too… down to sleep with other women to be with Sukie, but Sukie is a cop so whatever. At the lesbian bar, Sukie punches Jamie in the face and kicks her out. Jamie retreats to Marian’s house, ices her face, and kind of forces her way into Marian’s plan to go to Tallahassee. Marian just wants to go birding with her aunt, but Jamie wants to have sapphic fun in every town along the way.
To make their way from Philadelphia to Tallahassee, the girls visit a shop where they can rent a car to take to one way before dropping it off. This is where they meet the acerbic Curlie (Bill Camp) and for a $250 deposit and a reference (so he can break their balls if they don’t drop it off correctly), Curlie mistakenly gives the girls the wrong car. The car he gives Jamie and Marian is a car for gangsters and has something sinister inside of it. The women don’t know, so Jamie paints something on the back of it, and then the girls hit the road!
The drivers the mob hired quickly make their way over to Curlie looking for the car. He doesn’t have it. Naturally, he’s so acerbic when they question him, that they kind of beat the hell out of the poor Curlie and leave him on the floor where Chief (Colman Domingo) tells them to get some coffee and find those women.
Eventually Jamie and Marian meet up with some soccer players who take them to a “basement party.” Jamie accidentally helps Marian rediscover her vacant sexuality before she spends a night in jail, and the pair eventually get a flat tire on their “Curlie Car.” Now they will have to finally open the trunk and see that sinister business they’ve been carrying the whole time. Uh oh.
Big Doll Energy
Drive-Away Dolls is ridiculous fun, and it is hard to write about it without spoiling things. However, if you don’t mind a movie about women driving cars, making love to each other, and surviving by their wits, this film is a pretty fun banger from Ethan Coen and Tricia Cooke. Go forth, engage in the madcap fun of a film once called “Drive-Away Dykes,” and feel all the love you can while it’s still in theaters. I think they did great work here and you should check it out.