Drive-Away Dolls

I'm shocked! What is with all the negative response to this film? Did people have extreme high expectations or am I missing something?

I had a really fun time watching "Drive Away Dolls". I had no expectations whatsoever going in, all I knew was that it was directed by one of the Coen brothers. So I was pleasantly surprised how easily I was hooked into the story and its characters. It's a stripped back, simple, buddy comedy, with a modern flare to it. I found myself laughing at the jokes, which is a rarity in film for me, and overall just buying the entire wacky concept.

Is this film doing anything mind blowing? No. Is this film meant to be up for awards? No. Is this film going to be redefining cinema? No. It doesn't have to be any of those things, just an overall good, easy film to watch. One that is over in the less the 1 hour 30 mins, which flew by. Could have it been better, of course it could have been. The story maybe more fleshed out, the characters better developed. However, that would have made it drag on and messed up the high flying pace.

I am astounded by the really bad negative reaction to this film. Makes me wonder if I'm missing something or if I just have bad taste haha. I'm not even a Coen fan, I think their films can be very up and down. I went in wanting to be entertained and have fun doing so. This film achieved that.

70% out of 100%, its good and thats completely fine. Nothing thats gonna make you have an outer body experience or change your definition of film making. However, it might make you laugh and have a fun time.

Fun yet disappointing. It's a b-movie that's a raunchy, adventurous lesbian comedy-drama road trip. So creatively it sorta has a lot going for it. It has some funny bits, but it's not as fun and funny as i thought it'd be. It is a pleasant contrast to most self-consciously serious movies out there currently though. The movie had these transitions that reminded me of That 70's show; using graphics or clips that felt out of place to segue between scenes.

The actors seemed like they belonged to different films, which makes sense considering the main actresses, Margaret Qualley and Geraldine Viswanathan, were accidentally thrust into a criminal world. While the two girls treated their roles with a playful, unserious tone, Colman Domingo and Senator Matt Damon took their roles seriously, like actual gangsters despite the unserious and amusing dialogue. The headline "Senator shot outside lesbian bar" was funny. The goons fully embraced the movie's absurdity, while Pedro Pascal appeared to be in a different film entirely. His opening scene had felt very comic-bookish, and Miley Cyrus was in these psychedelic scenes that are later explained.

It's a movie that doesn't take itself seriously at all, and I think that works in its favor. Yet, I find myself slightly disappointed, thinking what the film could have been. As I said, creatively it had a lot going for it, but doesn't feel like it tried to push the envelope at all. It could've been a lighthearted 'Saltburn', or it could've been more goofy and funny, or way more vulgar and chaotic, or it could've been really thrilling like if some of the bad guys were actually frightening and intimidating. The girls never felt like they were in any danger. It feels like they could've pushed the movie in different directions but instead it's somewhere meddling in the middle. The movie played it safe.

The plot meanders through ridiculous scenarios on a purposeless road trip, intentional in its pointlessness. It is a short movie, but I also think there were some conversations that didn't really add much; scenes that wouldn't make much difference if removed. Jamie and Marian weren't the most interesting of characters and didn't have much of a spark. Their relationship could've been written better.

The movies not too terrible, I just think it had the potential to be more fun, funny and charming. Something that would light you up. The movie exudes pizazz but feels like it's missing it at the same time.

It is by now apparent that IMDB ratings are not reliable for any movie that touches on culture-war or other controversial topics. So it is with "Drive-Away Dolls", a buddy road-trip caper comedy whose main characters are young lesbians. As you might expect, there is a lot of raunchy humor and a lot of sex. Because of that, a bunch of homophobic trolls have tried to kill this movie by writing one-star reviews. To be clear, there is nothing profound about this movie; it is pure escapism, but there are lots of laughs and good performances, and it does not overstay its welcome at 80 minutes. If you are an open minded person you will enjoy it.

After seeing the trailer to Drive Away Dolls, I was expecting a crime caper comedy, but I saw the movie and got something different and not in a good way.

This movie I felt was trying more to shock us then being funny. Had promise but got wasted on lazy storytelling, and two characters who are amusing but then quickly I was feeling smothered by. Margaret Qualley and Geraldine Viswanathan are talented, and have good chemistry, but the problem is I wish they where better written, Qualley overacts and Viswanathan under acts. Other actors who I will not name come in and do very little here. This movie is a trainwreck.

Drive Away Dolls is the latest film from Ethan Coen but the first without collaboration from brother Joel. While Joel whittled away with a stark, black and white adaptation of Macbeth starring an utterly joyless Denzel Washington, Ethan's film wouldn't feel out of place alongside a 70s B-movie double feature. Dolls is replete with cheesy transitions, awkward close-ups, obnoxious neon, vintage Coen accents, and a welcome-but-not-quite-good-enough use of Maggot Brain. It's also a mixed bag of indulgent violence, puritan degeneracy, and half-baked characterizations.

The film follows Jamie and Marian as they drive to Tallahassee, inadvertently picking up precious cargo belonging to a group of shady individuals who have killed to keep it in their possession. The film is an interesting but sometimes tedious clash of black crime farce and melodramatic lesbian dramedy, devoting infrequent time to either story for proper depth or development.

Positives first. The film is funny. Not always funny, not quite funny enough, and garishly lacking the type of transgressive abrasiveness to make the material shine...but in general, it's funny. Though the characters aren't drawn intricately, their details (both from the script and the performances) are emphasized and repeated to build adequate rapport with each other and the audience.

Dolls is also stylized, in a perplexingly cheap but modestly endearing sort of way. The gimmicky transitions and trippy, spacey moments help build vital momentum to keep the first half breezy and engaging. However, Coen's parlor tricks wane and drag when the plot thickens and the film must carry itself on the merits of its own internal logistics and validity. When that time comes, the Dolls implodes.

Again, Dolls is a grinding mishmash of crime comedy and lesbian dramedy, an interesting conceit which never works with itself to create unity or continuity. The stories of disparate, often as jarring and incongruent as the smash-cut transitions which hold them together like staples through skin. The material feels like a first draft or an untalented mockery of a Coens brothers' script. The heart, patience, and icily detached bemusement of their earlier work has been augmented into the dishearteningly ubiquitous trend of smug, self-righteously assured moral congratulation.

Every creative choice tugs and struggles against the others, but the real letdown of Dolls is its faux dedication to irreverence in its superior first half. When the plot kicks in, when our leads are finally given true agency in regards to the bigger picture, everything becomes easy.

What should be an elongated sequence of comedic tension and unpredictability quickly upends itself to give our intrepid little heroes the necessary resources for a clean, bland getaway. The tension deflates; the comedy deflates; the interest deflates; the irreverence inverts, praising Jamie and Marian as ideal ideological models. It's disappointing and honestly unexpected, but maybe Ethan's been watching South Park recently - in the end, he managed to make it gay and make it lame.

Overall, Drive Away Dolls is tough to criticize or praise too fervently because it's a film of halves. The first half is tonally breezy and characterizations (both heroes and villains) are striking but not overbearing. In the second, the tone and treatment of protagonists is eye-rolling. In the first half, the stakes are high, the style is laid back, and the journey is leisurely. In the second, the stakes are obliterated, the style is forced, and the journey feels like a ham-fisted means to an end. See it as a curious counterpoint to Joel's Macbeth, but don't go in expecting Fargo. 5/9.