‘Drive-Away Dolls’ review: Coen brother’s ‘Pulp’-y, sex-forward romp mostly fun

“Drive-Away Dolls” doesn’t expect you to take it too seriously.

Or, at least, the filmmakers behind it — the husband-and-wife of tandem director Ethan and co-writer and -producer Tricia Cooke, who’s also credited as the movie’s editor — do not expect that.

They’ve made a guilty-pleasure romp that gives a nod to the B-movies of the late 1960s and ’70s, one that, in its first few minutes, quickly goes from graphically violent to explicitly sexual.

“Drive-Away Dolls” is a lesbian-forward adventure — Cooke, who identifies as queer, initially cooked up a title with a different “D” word at the end — with two girl-loving heroines taking a road trip and running afoul of some criminal types.

This is the second film as a solo director from Coen — who, with fellow directing brother Ethan, has given the world a slew of acclaimed films that include “Raising Arizona,” “The Big Lebowski,” “O Brother Where Art Thou” and “No Country for Old Men” — following the 2022 documentary “Jerry Lee Lewis: Trouble in Mind.”

It’s half-baked and, for the most part, pretty silly. And at not even 90 minutes, it’s also pretty slight, providing cause to wonder if Coen and Cooke perhaps shot a longer movie and then cut “Dolls” down to the bone to find something that works.

And work, this movie does, if barely. Like the junky old Dodge Aries our leading lesbians drive, the reasonably laugh-filled comedy feels as if it could fall apart, or at least run out of gas, at any moment.

Those gals are the appealing duo of Margaret Qualley‘s Jamie and Geraldine Viswanathan’s Marian. They’re friends with very different personalities, as the former is way more outgoing and uninhibited than the latter, and want to get out of town for different reasons: Jamie, having been caught cheating by her cop girlfriend, Sukie (Beanie Feldstein), desires a change of scenery; Marian, meanwhile, is fighting general unhappiness and thinks some time in Tallahassee birding with an older relative is just what she needs.

Wild girl, that Marian.

After a mix-up at Curlie’s Drive-Away, they’re given the aforementioned Dodge by Curlie (a grumpy-funny Bill Camp) to haul to Tallahassee. The car carries something valuable, along with a piece of very incriminating evidence, in its trunk. That makes them the target of the Chief (an underused Colman Domingo), who detaches henchmen Arliss (Joey Slotnick) and Flint (C.J. Wilson) to find them and retrieve the cargo.

Fortunately for the young ladies, Jamie convinces the reluctant Marian they shouldn’t take the straightest path from Philadelphia and instead seek out some side quests, namely finding spots peppered throughout the South believed to have one sort of lesbian-centric draw or another. This not only makes it harder for them to be found — of course, they’re blissfully unaware for a while that they’re being chased — but also allows for opportunities for them to learn more about each other. (“Drive-Away Dolls” is set in 1999, a time largely before mobile phones and GPS services, making ascertaining their whereabouts believably tricky.)

Coen and Cooke give us mirrors of Jamie and Marian in Arliss and Flint, but it’s less fun to spend time with the bungling and bickering crooks than it is with the women. The gents are good for a laugh for two, but that’s about it.

In the film’s production notes, the filmmakers cite inspirations such as Rus Meyer’s “Motorpsycho” and Doris Wishma’s “Bad Girls Go to Hell,” as well as “Kiss Me Deadly.” However, we couldn’t escape that they also are paying homage to writer-director Quentin Tarantino, not only via the film’s tone but with the inclusion of an all-important, “Pulp Fiction”-esque case that characters open but that we don’t get to see inside of … initially.

We won’t spoil its contents or reveal much about an item earlier on in “Drive-Away Dolls” that is affixed to Sukie’s wall. Honestly, we couldn’t if we wanted to, but it is briefly the topic of much discussion.

Amid all this raunchy zaniness, Qualley (“The Leftovers,” “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood”) and Viswanathan (“Blockers,” “The Broken Hearts Gallery”) anchor the movie with their performances. You may relate more to one than the other, but both characters are worth spending time with thanks largely to these actors. Most crucially,“Drive-Away Dolls” makes you care about them and how they’ll end up.

“Drive-Away Dolls” also gives you a dash of Pedro Pascal, a spritz of an uncredited Miley Cyrus and a healthy serving of Matt Damon, who shows up late in the proceedings as a conservative senator.

“Drive-Away Dolls” makes multiple allusions to the work of author Henry James and certainly argues that members of the same sex ought to be encouraged to live happily ever after together. Then again, it also plays at times like a stoner movie.

So maybe take it a little seriously, but just a little.

‘Drive-Away Dolls’

Where: Theaters.

When: Feb. 23.

Rated: R for crude sexual content, full nudity, language and some violent content.

Runtime: 1 hour, 25 minutes.

Stars (of four): 2.5.