I don’t love road
trips; they generally bore me and make me sick to my stomach, but do you know
who does love driving cross-country in cars, or at least filming people doing
so? The Coen Brothers. You know what else they like? Making movies about crimes
gone wrong. But have they ever made a cross-country crime caper with lesbian
protagonists? Ethan Coen has, though Joel was apparently busy doing other
things. The result is Drive-Away Dolls, a raunchy throwback to
exploitative B-movies of yore that somehow feels neither like a complete crime
film nor a complete romantic comedy, sputtering out of gas somewhere in
between.
The advertisements made Drive-Away Dolls out
to be a Lebowski-esque normal-people-get
caught-up-in-a-criminal-undertaking film with a sapphic twist, and I was
therefore a bit surprised at just how much screentime is devoted to the central
romance between Jamie (Margaret Qualley) and Marian (Geraldine Viswanathan). Their
love story feels much more central to the film than the actual crime plot,
which is good, because the crime plot is fairly bland and straightforward, and
both the comedic and romantic chemistry between Qualley and Viswanathan are
some of the stronger aspects of the film. If you could call it a love story, of
course... Jamie and Marian’s relationship doesn’t feel as much based on a
deeper emotional connection than it is based on a shared sexual attraction to
each other, which Dolls isn’t afraid to show you both frequently and
rather graphically. Ultimately, the sex-positive message tends to overshadow
the love part of the love story.
The absurdist comedy that the Coens are
famous for is present in Dolls but feels a lot more spaced out than
normal, leading to periods that don’t feel particularly funny or clever. A lot
of the comedy in the second act relies on the inherent funniness of the word
“penis” as well, so your mileage may vary. Is there even a second act? I’m not
entirely sure because of how quickly things wrap up. Again, the
not-quite-central crime plot is lame, its only redeeming factor being the
ridiculousness and novelty of the central MacGuffin, which does not get
revealed until late in the film. The villains never feel menacing or competent,
and the stakes never rise above the lowest of the low. When the film ended at
the 83-minute mark I was shocked, thinking that surely there must have been
more to it than that. Nope. Things really were that simple and straightforward.
Overall, the film feels incomplete, missing
something important. It has all the trappings of a schlocky B-movie, but the
spirit just isn’t there. Dolls never feels painful thanks to its strong
leads, occasional laughs, queer-positive message, and breezy runtime, but it
also could have gone further while simultaneously reigning some things in. As a
love story it’s not romantic enough, as a comedy it’s not funny enough, and as
a crime caper it’s not exciting or interesting enough. Drive away.
Drive-Away Dolls is now playing
exclusively in theaters.
This review was first published in the
Keizertimes on March 1st, 2024. Visit at www.keizertimes.com.
No comments:
Post a Comment