Rent Drive-Away Dolls (2023)

Drive-Away Dolls (aka Drive Away Dykes) review by Mark McPherson - Cinema Paradiso

Drive-Away Dolls is one of those manic crime comedies that relies more on the absurdity of the elements than the execution. It’s a film that’s hoping the props of dildos, severed heads, and mistaken identities will be enough to keep the audience laughing throughout. Unfortunately, with such a messy and all-over-the-place assembly, the actors can’t exactly effortlessly step into this formula and hope the ride will carry them. Try as they might, this film flops all over the place, relying on trippy animated bumpers to carry this picture’s wild nature.

Set in 1999 (with some questionable choices in regional politics and music that conflict with the era), the film follows the friends of Jamie (Margaret Qualley) and Marian (Geraldine Viswanathan). They’re a mismatched pair considering that Jamie is a horny lesbian sleeping around with everybody and cheating on her girlfriend. At the same time, Marian is an uptight lesbian who keeps herself far too reserved. The two decide to take a trip to Florida to escape it all. But, in a plot twist straight out of Beavis & Butt-head Do America, the two women unwittingly rent a car that carries valuable items sought by dangerous people.

Before they discover the shocking reveal of a severed head and a suitcase of dildos, Jamie and Marian go on a hunt for sex amid their road trip. Jamie has no problem using her gaydar to find the best lesbian spots in the South. She proceeds to sleep around with any willing woman she can find while Marian awkwardly tries to get out of the way of the many one-night stands. With Marian still feeling uncertain about her sexuality, she starts developing feelings for Jamie, and the two of them soon find their way into some passionate situations of oral sex.

Qualley and Viswanathan have such good chemistry that it’s almost criminal how they’re handed such a first-draft script. This is a story in which the tone is all over the place. When focusing on the central friendship-turning-romance, the film has a quirky charm, albeit amid some lukewarm attempts at comedy. When focusing on the antagonists trying to track them down, the film adheres to a darker tone with goofy moments. It feels as though the film can’t make up its mind about whether or not Colman Domingo is supposed to be an intimidating or bumbling criminal mastermind. Thus, the film resorts to giving him too goofy sidekicks. One talks way too long about how badly he wants to fornicate, while the other gets molested by a dog amid a home invasion. You know a film is struggling for comedy when getting humped by a dog is thrown in as a side gag.

For a plot that involves a scandal with a senator and concerns about gay rights, it’s surprising how toothless this film comes off. There are moments where it feels like there’s a setup for a more enticing lesbian road trip movie with biting commentary. And yet, the film barely feels like it takes place in the far-off time of 1999, where characters only passively mention Y2K and make inaccurate statements about where gay marriage was legal at the time. Even the sex scenes don’t feel all that engaging, considering even the most erotic moments are capped with a dildo being used for the punchline.

Dive-Away Dolls has the look and feel of a mildly interesting comedy that needs to be refined. It’s shocking how off this film feels from director and co-writer Ethan Coen, who helmed a similar film called Burn After Reading. At least within that messy ensemble of a picture, there were some genuine moments of laughter, including the absurd dildo machine that was built. By that metric, Drive-Away Dolls favors volume over quality, where the comedy comes not from the presence of a dildo but from its abundance.