“Drive Away Dolls” is a 2024 comedy and thriller film starring Margaret Qualley and Geraldine Viswanathan. It follows two young women, Marian and Jamie, who embark on a road trip to Tallahassee, Florida in hopes of a fresh start. However, the car that they rent contains a supposedly important briefcase that criminals are after, making them targets.
Unlike most movies I have watched, I went into this one without any prior knowledge as to what it’s about, not even the genre. The only thing I knew about this was that Qualley was in it, and I love Qualley, so I naturally assumed that I would love the movie. I had no expectations nor predictions, but still I was sadly disappointed. Although there are many components I found to be well done, namely Qualley’s scenes, the film was not my cup of tea.
The movie started off with a highly suspenseful note where a man is followed and brutally murdered for a mysterious briefcase. The concept of a thriller centered around a mysterious briefcase is immensely overdone and redundant, but I was still very drawn in and curious due to the intensity of the opening scene. However, the story ended up going in a direction I never could have expected.
I genuinely got more and more confused as the movie went on, even though it was only 84 minutes. To start off, seeing the transitions truly made my mouth produce physical giggles. Some may argue that it was well done and had a cinematic appeal, but I couldn’t help but find it comical. For example, there was one transition of a pizza spinning that morphed into a woman spinning, then a kaleidoscope and it eventually became a telephone? To add, there was a sudden sound effect for each and every transition, and that is something I have never seen in an acclaimed movie before. Frankly, it felt as if I was watching a PowerPoint presentation constructed by a seventh grader, and that drastically changed my perception of the movie.
Although I found the transitions and editing to be extremely hilarious, I did like the dynamic between the two main characters. Jamie is a typical free-spirited and extroverted character, whereas Marian is a much more quiet and sheltered person. This trope is definitely quite overdone, but I enjoyed it as I believe the movie did a fine job in encompassing the struggle for lesbians finding their true identity and feeling safe in their own skin. Though I did not enjoy the actual plot of the movie, I think the dynamic of the characters and the exceptional delivery from the actresses made it much more tolerable.
Now, on to the actual plot. I can definitely see how people could find the plot humorous, but I was so confused that I didn’t have time to find it funny. There were many dark elements of the movie, such as physically putting corkscrews in a man’s neck to kill him, that made me believe this movie would go in a completely different turn. The suspicious briefcase from the beginning was the bulk of the movie, and I initially thought it would end up being something cliche, like cash or drugs. However, when they revealed the briefcase at the end, it ended up having multiple penises in it. My confusion went to flabbergast. There is a high possibility that the point of the movie flew over my head, potentially because I was counting down the minutes till when I could leave, but it is safe to assume that I was not a fan.
