Drive-Away Dolls
Drive-Away Dolls
Jamie regrets her breakup with her girlfriend, while Marian needs to relax. In search of a fresh start, they embark on an unexpected road trip to Tallahassee. Things quickly go awry when they cross paths with a group of inept criminals.
vangh1 reviewedJanuary 17, 2025
Am I the only one who felt like Jamie was written as Ulysses Everett McGill's, like, great grand niece? And I consider Margaret Qualley a strong actress, but something about this performance (it's probably mostly the accent) just never feels like more than a person reciting written lines. I would have to say the same for Beanie Feldstein's Sukie, which, again, I've seen her do great work so I'm not sure why the stark and stylized attempt of the performances in this movie just don't work.
The psychedelic cutaways feel obviously reminiscent of <i>The Big Lebowski</i> (or like knock-offs, if you want to be less generous) but while they work there because they feel full of meaningful -if obscure- imagery and can be tied to The Dude's "occasional acid flashbacks" in this they're just meaningless and misplaced (despite the effort to tie them back to the Senator's marijuana hazed backstory)
The mistaken identity set up of the whole plots feels very Cohens-y in the best way, and everything ends up playing out in the way you would expect it to in a Cohens movie, but it lacks the whole "Those idiots really make you think" aspect that joint Cohens manage to pull off.
The sex scenes are clearly meant to be over the top, but they're WAY, WAY too over the top to the point it feels like a parody of a caricature of a bad dub of an anime or something, like they asked an AI to generate sex scenes based on descriptions submitted by 3rd grades, 9th grades, and 85 year olds understanding on sex.
Two things I really enjoyed in this movie:
1) The idea that every lesbian everywhere is moments away from being invited to a basement party
2) The execution of the relationship between the two goons. I feel like "Partners that are oil and water" is a WELL tread path, but it feels unique and genuinely funny here. The "intelligent and diplomatic" goon constantly orating (read: bloviating) about how dense and ineffectual his partner is while being completely oblivious that he's turning up the heat on a pot already beginning to boil resulting in classic climax hijinx was maybe the only payoff that really worked in the movie for me.
I've yet to see <i>Tragedy of Macbeth</i> but with reading so much about how you can clearly see how each of the distinct Cohen brothers in their solo films come together to make past shared films, I really feel compelled to now.