This piece was originally published in The AntReader. The link no longer works. 

Editor’s Note: This article contains spoilers for the film “Drive Away Dolls.”

Margaret Qualley, the beloved star of “Maid,” shines as Jamie, a raging Texan lesbian, alongside the stiff, unsociable Marian, played by Geraldine Viswanathan, in Ethan Coen’s newest film, “Drive Away Dolls,” released on Feb. 23. 

After cheating on her girlfriend Sukie (Beanie Feldstein) results in an ugly breakup where Sukie tearily unscrews her wall dildo from its placard, Jamie decides to get out of town, embarking on an impromptu road trip with her friend Marian, who plans on visiting her aunt in Tallahassee. Almost immediately, chaos ensues as the two take the wrong car — one that has Pedro Pascal’s head in the trunk over ice — and become mixed up in a dildo-casting scheme against Senator Channel (Matt Damon). 

The girls are anything but discreet as they speed along from Philly to Tallahassee, the phrase “Love is a sleigh ride to HELL” spray painted across the trunk. Unbeknownst to Jamie and Marian, they are being unsuccessfully tracked down by the bumbling criminals Arliss (Joey Slotnick) and Flint (C.J. Wilson) — or, as Sukie puts it, George and Lenny, evoking Steinbeck’s “Of Mice and Men” — to retrieve the dildos and the severed head on behalf of the senator. Through erotic, dream-like LSD-trip visions, the audience catches glimpses of the crime that started it all — Tiffany Plastercaster (Miley Cyrus) is the woman responsible for making casts of famous penises, including the senator’s, which is at risk of getting out into the public. 

“Hey, handsome,” her sultry voice echoes through the hazy vision. “You wanna get plastered?”

Despite all of the political and criminal shenanigans, the real meat of the film lies in the unexpected budding romance between the uptight Marian, who hasn’t had sex in “three years, four months and nine days,” and the promiscuously aloof Jamie, who can’t bear the thought of settling down. On the road together, they make several stops — spending a night at The Butter Churn, a lesbian bar decorated with blue lights and rainbow flags; pulling over for pizza and Shirley Temples in red diner glasses; and a makeout party — with the goal in mind of getting Marian laid. 

Somewhere along the way — as Marian sits outside of their hotel room, frowning over Henry James’ “Europeans” while Jamie occupies the hotel room with a girl from The Butter Churn — Marian develops feelings for Jamie. Because of their constant proximity and being stuck in the car together for days on end, this film presents itself as a distortion of the U-Haul lesbian stereotype, based on a common assumption that lesbians move incredibly quickly in relationships, often living together earlier on than other couples. The two of them effectively “move in” together before they know each other romantically as they cross the country — Jamie’s belongings from moving out of Sukie’s in tow. 

“You are not the kind of person who brings a girl to a roadside motel,” Jamie says to Marian, and their relationship spawns somewhat hastily, becoming intimate and committed almost immediately. 

“To a degree, ‘Drive-Away Dolls’ seems of a piece with the Coens’ practice of playing with story forms (film genres and otherwise), which they have consistently satirized, upended and all but gutted,” the New York Times writes. “Mixing the ostensibly high with the putatively low, they sample and riff on populist and rarefied sources, the spiritual and the material. This can create a fascinating doubling in the sense that there’s the movie in front of you and its layered references, all of which can flow together when they don’t congeal, which alas happens here.” 

While this claim is not baseless and the film does not dig as deep as it most likely could, it also ignores the most important point: the film, previously set to be named “Drive Away Dykes,” is not meant to be taken seriously. Similarly to other outlandish and borderline criminal road trip comedies like “Little Miss Sunshine” and “We’re the Millers,” “Drive Away Dolls” takes on an identity of its own, wedging itself into the genre with just enough nuance to stand out as a queer-classic-to-be. 

It is vital that lesbians are visible on the big screen, and despite the film’s perceived disjointedness, “Drive Away Dolls” pushes the envelope of what vast audiences are willing to stomach in regard to queer culture, which is not a small feat. To have artful queer films, there must also be ridiculous and vulgar on-the-nose flicks, and “Drive Away Dolls” proves itself as a queer cult classic as the two girls drive away to Massachusetts because “women can get married there.” Spray-painted triumphantly in place of the previous tagline, the trunk reads, “Love is a sleigh ride so here goes.” 

Lillian Dunn is a 2023-2024 Arts & Entertainment Editor. She can be reached at lbdunn@uci.edu. 

Edited by Lexis Pham, Jaheem Conley and Jennifer Cheong