Drive-Away Dolls: Movie Review

Cast: Margaret Qualley, Geraldine Viswanathan, Beanie Feldstein, Colman Domingo, Bill Camp, Matt Damon, Pedro Pascal

Director: Ethan Coen

Ethan Coen's latest, a bawdy and brash road trip movie, is a film that, thanks to its appealing messiness, will test your limits in more ways than one.

Despite only mustering a brisk 84 minutes in length, large swathes of this odd couple LGBT comedy road trip feel padded out filled by unnecessary quirks and visuals by a director who's a little unsure of what he wants to do.

Qualley and Viswanathan star as flatmates Jamie and Marian. Polar opposites - Jamie is a fast talking and fast and loose woman about town and Marian an uptight celibate - the pair find themselves on a road trip to Tallahassee to drop off a car.

But by confusion, they end up picking up a car that contains a very precious cargo - a suitcase with mysterious contents - and also pick up a pair of desperate thugs keen to get the case first.

Both are running from something - Jamie, a break up with Sukie her policewoman girlfriend and Marian, on the run from the tedium of daily life and desperate for a change of scene.  Yet Coen doesn't quite seem to know what to do with them, frequently filling escalating screwball proceedings with occasionally lingering shots of women or using Qualley's star-making turn and accent to enliven what transpires.

As with any Coen film, there are a number of quirky characters, who range from dim-witted to being overly precise with words - this is a world of extremes where misunderstandings are prevalent and contrived for the plot. But despite the excellent chemistry between Qualley and Viswanathan, there are too many moments when the story's freewheeling feels like it's overplayed and overcooked; yet bizarrely, there are parts when thanks to numerous cameos and distractions, much of it feels undercooked. It's rooted in the 90s in many way, and even the obsession with the case channels Pulp Fiction in more ways than one.

Yet, Drive-Away Dolls is a film of opposites in many ways, but while it's to be commended for presenting the kind of movie where the women are playing as freely as their male counterparts often do in the genre, you can't help but feeling Ethan Coen's storytelling prowess isn't nearly as strong here as it should - or could - have been.