Drive-Away Dolls (2024)    Focus/Action-Comedy    RT: 84 minutes    Rated R (crude sexual content, full nudity, language, some violent content)    Director: Ethan Coen    Screenplay: Ethan Coen and Tricia Cooke    Music: Carter Burwell    Cinematography: Ari Wegner    Release date: February 23, 2024 (US)    Cast: Margaret Qualley, Geraldine Viswanathan, Beanie Feldstein, Colman Domingo, Pedro Pascal, Bill Camp, Matt Damon, Joey Slotnick, C.J. Wilson, Annie Gonzalez, Connie Jackson.

Rating: *** ½

 Drive-Away Dolls is the second movie this month with cult film potential, the first being the largely ignored Lisa Frankenstein. Like the comedy-horror teen romance, Drive-Away Dolls is a lot of things. It’s a road trip picture, a darkly comic crime thriller and a lesbian love story. Directed by one half of the Coen Brothers (Ethan), it’s pretty bizarre. It’s also the best movie I’ve seen this month.

Set at the tail end of 1999 when Y2K fever was high, the plot centers on a briefcase taken from a mysterious guy (Pascal, The Mandalorian) by mobsters who also relieve him of his head. It ends up in the trunk of a car that ends up in the possession of two friends, free-spirited Jamie (Qualley, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood) and uptight Marian (Viswanathan, Blockers), taking a road trip to Tallahassee to clear their heads. Jamie’s just been dumped by her girlfriend Sukie (Feldstein, Booksmart) for cheating on her. Looking to get out of Dodge for a while, she talks her friend Marian into going on the road in a driveaway car. For the uninformed, that’s a car picked up at Point A and driven to Point B by another driver.

 Due to a misunderstanding on the part of the service owner Curlie (Camp, Sound of Freedom), Jamie and Marian unknowingly get the car containing the briefcase. It was supposed to go to a couple of goons, taciturn Flint (Wilson, Manchester by the Sea) and chatty Arliss (Slotnick, Plane), working for crime boss Chief (Domingo, The Color Purple). It’s valuable cargo and Chief needs to get it back ASAP. He sends his guys to chase down the girls and retrieve it.

 While the bad guys do their things, the girls do theirs. Marian, true to character, wants to go straight to Tallahassee so she can enjoy some bird watching with her favorite aunt. Jamie just wants to have fun, stopping at every tourist trap, BBQ joint and sleazy lesbian bar along the way. It’s a rocky journey at first and it doesn’t get any smoother once the ladies discover the case hidden in the truck along with a bucket containing Pascal’s head. They have no idea what they’ve stumbled onto….. yet.

 Unlike Pulp Fiction, we do find out what’s in the briefcase and it’s in perfect keeping with the film’s twisted and perverted sensibility. I wouldn’t dream of revealing the contents, but I will say it’s somehow connected to an ultra-conservative politician played by Matt Damon. That’s all I’m going to say on this matter.

 I can definitely see Drive-Away Dolls becoming a queer cult classic. It’s a fun ride at a zippy, energetic 84 minutes. It’s droll in a dark way with a hint of danger lurking at the edges. It has the same smart, goofball spirit as Burn After Reading with its oddball characters, bizarre situations and trippy, psychedelic dream sequences (featuring an uncredited Miley Cyrus as the dream girl). It’s extremely open with its sexuality, never holding back when it comes to depicting such activity. There’s also a semi-sweet love story about two friends realizing they could be more than friends if Marian could let go of her inhibitions and Jamie could be more grounded.  

 The cast does a tremendous job. Qualley is great as the more adventurous of the pair, always willing to try anything at least once. She takes great joy in most everything she does whether it’s kissing a stranger or pleasuring herself with a dildo. Viswanathan is even better as Marian. Her deadpan manner is one of the film’s greatest highs. In early scene, she deals with a flirtatious male co-worker by constantly correcting his grammar. This is a girl who reads Henry James for fun. The two actresses have amazing chemistry, but Beanie Feldstein nearly steals the show as Jamie’s furious ex, a cop who gets pulled into their escapades. Domingo show quiet danger as the main bad guy while Wilson and Slotnick make a nifty mismatched pair.

 Coen, who wrote the screenplay with wife Tricia Cooke, does a great job on his first outing without sibling Joel. It’s so strange and warped, I can’t not love it. Drive-Away Dolls, jokingly referred to as Drive-Away Dykes in the closing credits, is right up there with last year’s queer high school comedy Bottoms. Sure, it’s not for everybody. It’s definitely not going to play in Peoria, but it’s not for them now, is it? Its true audience knows who they are.