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“Drive-Away Dolls,” which premiered in Philadelphia in 1999, stars Margaret Qualley as Jamie, a sexually voracious free spirit who is the toast (and butter and jam) of all her gay friends, except Sukie ( Beanie Feldstein), the bride. She’s been cheating on me with cheerful, pillow-biting regularity. Now, finally and unceremoniously dumped (unless removing a sex toy from the wall counts as a ceremony), Jamie moves in with Marian (Geraldine Viswanathan), an uptight cubicle dweller who prefers Henry James, sensible suits and humorless looks. Jamie insists that they cheer themselves up by traveling to Tallahassee to visit Marian’s aunt; What they don’t know is that the shuttle service they signed up for (think: free car rental to Florida) has provided them with a Dodge Aries carrying mysteriously valuable contraband.
The mess puts Jamie and Marian in the crosshairs of a local criminal organization headed by a soft-spoken brute known only as the Boss (Colman Domingo), who recruits two thugs to recover the suitcase. What follows is, at least on paper, a quirky tour of the South’s best lesbian bars and “basement parties,” with Jamie and Marian managing to thwart or outsmart their pursuers at every turn. But the plot of “Drive-Away Dolls” is not as important as the opportunities it gives Coen and his co-writer, his wife Tricia Cooke, to include all the naughty jokes and pulpy period references they can: The “Big Lebowski.” The ’70s-style sequences, psychedelia and trippy animations, may make sense when the MacGuffin identity finally appears, but they still feel as gratuitous and forced as the rest of the film.
The lead actresses commit fully to a part that asks Qualley to deliver surprisingly frank dialogue in a molasses-sweet Texas accent; Viswanathan’s prodigious comic skills are wasted on (pardon the expression) straight-woman reactions and asides. The men who follow them, played by Joey Slotnick and CJ Wilson, do their best with a beat that sounds like something out of Steve Buscemi and Peter Stormare’s outtakes in “Fargo”; in that darkly funny masterpiece, stupidity was elevated to operatic heights, while here it simply lies being, well, stupid. There are bright spots: Bill Camp introduces a welcome note of grim realism even at the height of the film’s most polite madness, and a third-act cameo arrives just in time to almost save the day.
Almost. “Drive-Away Dolls” is one of those movies that is so funny, so full of gleeful rogues and scoundrels, that it seems designed in reverse to defy serious criticism. Taking issue with her cartoonish violence, crude sexual jokes, and retro-tastic aesthetic feels like one of Marian’s insults: we’re supposed to relax and just have fun with it.
Which would be easy if Coen could keep the balloon afloat, rather than making it feel like an overcompensating exercise in aren’t we having fun? “Drive-Away Dolls” may not aspire to greatness, but that doesn’t mean it had to be executed with such fun. What begins as a lewd joke turns into a frenetic, overworked slog, which in turn morphs into a punchline that’s been looking for a setup all along. (Connoisseurs of the legendary groupies of the 1970s will get the joke.) “Drive-Away Dolls” may succeed as a cheesy cinematic curio, but it’s as empty and disposable as a Dixie cup on the side of the road.
r. In the area’s cinemas. Contains crude sexual content, full nudity, profanity and some violence. 84 minutes.