In 2021, Saturday Night Live released a sketch named “Lesbian Period Drama.” It was meant as a parody of period dramas featuring lesbians in a repressive setting, such as “Carol,” “Portrait of a Lady on Fire,” “The Favourite” and “Ammonite.” The sketch poked fun at the overly serious nature of movies like these and how they were the only kind of movies featuring lesbians that ever seemed to get any attention — or, indeed, get made at all. However, in recent years, there has been another kind of lesbian movie making waves.
It started with “Booksmart” in 2018, a comedy following two high school girls trying to get laid before they go off to college. Last year, there was the teen comedy “Bottoms” about two high school-aged lesbians who start a fight club in an attempt to hook up with cheerleaders. And on Feb. 22, “Drive-Away Dolls,” a lesbian road trip comedy by Ethan Coen was released.
“Drive-Away Dolls” follows two young women Marian (Geraldine Vishwanathan) and Jamie (Margaret Qualley) who decide to go on a road trip to Tallahassee, Florida to get away from the pressures of their lives. Wires get crossed and they realize that the car they’ve borrowed has a mysterious briefcase that criminals are hunting to find. What follows is a wacky 90-minute comedy filled with sexual awakening, plenty of psychedelic neon-filled flashbacks and Miley Cyrus making a plaster cast of a senator’s penis.
Silly and sexy seem to be the best words to describe this film. Vishwanathan is a scene-stealer as the fussy, uptight Marian and brilliantly executes her droll lines. Still, Qualley is a pit of charisma and energy as the carefree Jamie who is determined to make the best of her life and have as many sexual experiences as she can, regardless of fidelity. Together, they check out many lesbian bars and hot slumber parties on their way to Tallahassee — a location that is also a source of many jokes in the film.
This film takes the “road trip” part of this movie very seriously with several back-and-forths of the hilarious signature Coen dialogue between not only Marian and Jamie, but two of the hapwit criminals chasing them. Credited simply as “The Goons,” the two criminals hot on Marian and Jamie’s tail have their wacky road trip shenanigans with Joey Slotnick as the overly preachy criminal high off his wisdom and CJ Wilson as a dimwitted thug who punches first and asks questions second, but routinely gets beat up. Matt Damon has a surprisingly funny scene-stealing turn as a conservative senator who will go to whatever lengths he can to get his goods back. With a sharp comedic wit, Beanie Feldstein is the best part of the movie as Suzanne, a rage-filled cop who Jamie dumps at the beginning.
The film is drenched with queer femininity, from the wardrobes to the locations to the dialogue. The biggest example of this is the constant flashbacks to Marian as a child, straining for a peek at her naked female neighbor. She wants something, but she doesn’t know what. It’s a struggle the adult Marian carries as well, wanting something more with Jamie but not knowing how to ask for it. Though the film is set in 1999, when lesbian bars were much more common across the country, Marian and Jamie still feel resonant with today’s queer youth. Jamie’s character embodies the motif that life is short, so just go for what you want at the moment.
Ethan Coen and his wife Tricia Cooke, who co-wrote the film together, talked about wanting to make a lesbian film that was “proudly unimportant.” Cooke added, “I think it’s important that there are more queer comedies out there because we want to eat our popcorn and have fun at the movies, too.” Movies about lesbians in the repressive setting of the past learning to come to terms with their sexuality in an unforgiving society can be important and well-made. But more films about lesbians simply trying to have as much sex as they can feel important, too.
Verdict: “Drive Away Dolls” is an outrageously sexy comedy that centers on lesbian women and their desires against a backdrop of a signature Coen comedy.
