I’m not sure what the best way to start this out other than saying I am disappointed at what I watched. This had all the makings of an excellent movie with humorous parts and great cameos, instead, it ended up being a fast-paced jumble of various scenes strung together by out-of-place segways. You’re probably not too excited to run out and watch it now, but I still want to warn you that spoilers are ahead, so if you don’t want to get spoiled, then drive away and check out some of my other reviews here.
Alright, for those of you who don’t care or have already seen it, let’s discuss Drive-Away Dolls and why I wasn’t a big fan of it. So, Drive-Away Dolls is a movie by Ethan Coen without his brother Joel being a part of it. (Maybe that’s what it was missing?) Coen co-wrote it with Tricia Cooke, who has worked with Coen before. The concept of this film was enticing, and the trailer made it seem even better. I mean, I guess the trailer did its job right? But, almost as soon as the movie starts, it becomes so fast-paced that it skips over important items as it goes along.
But let’s slow down a little bit here. First, I want to say that I had high hopes for this. Both Margaret Qualley as Jamie and Geraldine Viswanathan as Marian seemed like a fun 1-2 punch for this buddy picture about two girls who decide to go to Tallahassee, FL. Jamie is fed up with her love life after her most recent breakup with her girlfriend, and Marian is fed up with her life in general and wants a change. Marian says she has an aunt down there that she wants to stay with for a bit and Jamie decides to go with her. The girls decide that a one-way trip is the best, so they come up with the idea of using a drive-away car to make the trip. At the same time that they are planning their journey to Florida, another group is setting up a scheduled delivery to Tallahassee as well.
This other group is hired to drive the car because there is something hidden in the trunk, and it must be delivered by the next day. So naturally, a mix-up occurs when the girls show up saying they want to go to Tallahassee. Curlie (Bill Camp), the guy who runs the drive-away place doesn’t realize this and gives them the car. Later when the goons Flint (C.J. Wilson) and Arliss (Joey Slotnick) show up with The Chief, they are obviously not happy about the mix-up and rough Curlie up a bit. This is where the movie turns into a not-quite-cross-country chase as the two goons are driving south to track down the girls.
This was also about the time when they started skipping past stuff and not going back to finish up storylines. Oddly enough, this is when I also started to lose interest in it. For some reason, they decided to make this movie less than 90 minutes which is most likely the reason it sped through the way it did. Jamie and Marian’s friendship was pushed to the edge as Jamie kept trying to have Marian find a lady to take to bed as she continued to outwardly express that she was a lesbian to everyone they met. That was the exact word she used most often to describe herself at every stop.
Eventually, everything comes to a head when the goons catch up to them, take the hidden case back (which at this point we find out was filled with dildos), then the girls get it back anyway only to use it to blackmail some money from the Senator (Matt Damon). This whole last act was an absolute trainwreck. They leave Curlie lying on the floor alive and we never see him again. Flint shoots and kills Arliss and The Chief right in front of the girls and then just leaves and we never find out what happens to him. Jamie’s ex-girlfriend (Beanie Feldstein) shows up for one scene and then we don’t know what happens to her. Matt Damon’s role is very tiny and you really can’t figure out what he is trying to do before he’s caught and Miley Cyrus has an even smaller cameo that makes even less sense.
Overall, this was a good story that was messed up with sloppy writing and even worse editing. The actors did a good job with what they had to work with, but this seemed more like a budding love story between two women who went from friends to lovers with a few side characters thrown in for filler. I have always been a fan of the Coens, but maybe they need to go back to working together on films so they can catch some of this next time.
I place this movie squarely at a 4 out of 10. I couldn’t “drive away” from the theater fast enough after only 1 hour and 24 minutes.
