Drive-Away Dolls’s release was delayed by half a year because of the SAG-AFTRA strike and it is worth the wait. It’s been nearly a month since I’ve seen this movie, but it’s at the top of my list to recommend for anyone who’s interested in a gay caper or a good movie. This is the year of gay capers apparently, because tomorrow Wife and I are seeing a matinee of Love Lies Bleeding tomorrow. Ethan Coen wrote this with his wife Tricia Cooke and without Joel (so so so much has been written about this and I totally recommend the deep dive, because it’s fun to see the ways in which you can reverse engineer the DNA of each Coen Brother film based on this one control group). It clocks in at 87 minutes, which makes it the easiest commitment to a movie you’ve ever made in your life, but in those 87 minutes not a moment is wasted. The plot is crisp, clever, windy, but also structurally neat.
Margaret Qualley‘s Texas accent is absolutely insane and delightful. Geraldine Viswanathan (Blockers, TBS’s Miracle Workers!) plays the straight man so to speak, a sexually repressed, but not closeted woman on a roadtrip to reset after she’s fallen into a funk. Their trip is complicated by an unexpected package in the back of their rental, which leads to some unwanted attention by two thugs, whose dialogue is white hot funny (though the final act argument feels a little awkward?). There are two many sexy moments to number and, really, the unapologetically horny nature of this movie is the point. I think the phrase I read that describes the way we meet Qualley’s Jamie is “wrist deep in pussy” from one review.
The music is excellent as a love letter to 1999, a period of time I would not until last month have described as a “period,” but alas I am old and it is. The twist reveal with the suitcase is excellent. The glimmerings of gay culture are unique and complexly drawn: rainbow card, gay bars, the soccer team and their help. I cannot recommend highly enough and it’s so cool that this movie will always and forever be tied together with Lisa Frankenstein on the one end and Love Lies Bleeding on the other, a perfect triple feature!
