REVIEW: Don’t take a ride with the ‘Drive-Away Dolls’

A person would think a film directed by one of the Coen brothers and featuring a talented cast would result in a good experience. Unfortunately, that’s not the case with “Drive-Away Dolls.”

Set in 1999, “Dolls” follows close friends Jamie (Margaret Qualley) and Marian (Viswanathan), who’re on a road trip from Philadelphia to Florida. The journey south was originally just supposed to be Marian’s trip, but Jamie decided to tag along after breaking up with her girlfriend Sukie (Beanie Feldstein).

What should be a simple road trip with a few pit stops, though, turns into something much more dangerous when it turns out the two women rented a car meant to be used by organized crime. Inside the car, the protagonists find a mysterious brief case and a big piece of criminal evidence.

“Drive-Away Dolls” is one of those films that, on paper, should make a person feel good walking into the theater. There’s talent both in front of and behind the camera. However, this film from one half of the Coen Brothers ends up being a complete nothing burger.

The film has messy execution, humor that doesn’t work and questionable creative choices. A great example of the latter are the transitions from scene-to-scene in the film, where there is a lot of psychedelic-like imagery on screen, as if this was from the 60s or 70s. As a reminder, this is supposed to be in 99.

But Coen, who also wrote the film, didn’t really seem interested in the era he set his own movie in. There’s very little about the upcoming year 2000 and Y2K concerns. There are also few 90s needle drops and almost no mention of pop culture from that decade.

A viewer could maybe overlook this if this film had actually been a satisfying buddy road movie. That’s what one would expect from two characters on the road who’re on the run from some bad guys. In most cases, you get some lovable protagonists who run into wacky characters and wild shenanigans along the way.

There’s very little of that, though, in “Drive-Away Dolls,” with few pit stops along the way, as well as a noticeable lack of the type of action and hijinx usually associated with crime comedies. Instead, the film is really full of a lot of sex comedy and situations related to it.

Which, fine. Sex comedies are certainly a genre. Most of them, though, usually focus on characters being on some sort of comedic personal journey to have a sexual experience or go through the awkwardness that can come with it. Some even are about being covert about sex. Think  “Zack and Miri Make a Porno,” “Superbad,” “Sex Tape” and even 2023’s “No Hard Feelings.”

But in this film, the main focus of the characters is what they find in the car and the criminal elements that are after them. As a result, the sexual humor always feels kind of tacked on, as it’s not the main focus of the story, yet it’s the most used source of comedy.

It doesn’t help that the attempts at humor aren’t that good either. It often comes across as forced, and there’s a feeling that the writing came from a place of wanting to show off how many boundaries they’re pushing with all of the sex jokes. The only problem is that in the year 2024, it’s really not all that impressive.

There’s also an odd focus on one of the character’s earlier experiences with sexual attraction. During a couple scenes here and there, Marian has flashbacks to when she was first discovering her sexuality.

These don’t really make sense as it doesn’t relate much to what’s happening in her current story. If she was still in the closet, it might have made sense, but she’s a woman who’s proudly out and just happened to hit a rough patch in terms of dating.

A lot of these issues are too bad because the lead actresses are skilled. Viswanathan has shown great comedic abilities in the film “Blockers” and the TV series “Miracle Workers.” Qualley, meanwhile, has been fantastic on screen in 2019’s “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood” and the Netflix series “Maid.”

In this film, though, Viswanathan’s abilities seem restricted and all Qualley really does in most of the picture is put on a poor Texas accent. The supporting cast isn’t used all that well, either. It’s a line-up with awesome performers like Beanie Feldstein, Colman Domingo and Matt Damon, and they’re of course naturally good, but given such little to do.

Even with a runtime that’s below 85 minutes, “Drive-Away Dolls” feels like it goes on too long. The movie comes across as underwritten, with characters who don’t have enough personality and a reliance on sex jokes that don’t entirely fit the story and are hit and miss at best. 1 out of 5.