Drive Away Dolls review: Dated and desperately unfunny, this film made me want to drive away

DRIVE AWAY DOLLS

(15) 84mins

★★☆☆☆

ISN’T it exhausting being around someone who thinks they are really funny when they’re, well, just not?

Those who relentlessly push their idea of humour on everyone, making you feel obliged to give the occasional, supportive laugh or nod of encouragement.

PA

PA

That’s how I felt during this heist “comedy” from one half of the Coen Brothers, Ethan.

This chaotic story, performed by the very competent (Margaret Qualley and Geraldine Viswanathan), made me feel as though I needed to do some fake, pity laughs.

Simply in the hope it would encourage funnier films to be made.

Silly capers

Set in 1999, unlikely friends and fellow lesbians Jamie (Qualley) and Marian (Viswanathan) are struggling with the problems in their individual love lives.

Jamie is a serial cheater and well known at the local gay bar for her philandering ways.

Her terrifying cop ex-girlfriend, Suki (Beanie Feldstein), has kicked her out for sleeping with someone else in their home — an excruciatingly over-exaggerated sex scene.

Marian is uptight and perpetually single.

We know this because she wears blouses buttoned to the top and eye rolls at anything vaguely promiscuous.

They are both seeking a change and decide to rent a car and drive to start a new life in Tallahassee.

But their hired motor contains a very valuable suitcase, which some violent gangsters really need.

And so starts the chase across the country, with the head-in-the-clouds lesbians getting in silly capers and sexual shenanigans, while being pursued by hitmen.

The main characters, although performed well enough, are very one note.

Jamie, with her Texan drawl, is constantly horny and flamboyant — seeing the world as an art project she wants to have sex with.

Marian finds everything offensive, sleeping in buttoned-up PJs and reading epic novels in bed.

Leaving the pair’s friendship lacking credibility.

There is a decent cameo from Feldstein, who manages to perform a slightly amusing, aggressive police woman even hardened criminals fear.

But the others, who I’m assuming are Ethan Coen’s mates, including Pedro Pascal, Matt Damon and Miley Cyrus just say a few words of nonsense and are criminally underused.

Dated and desperately unfunny, this film made me want to drive away.

MONSTER

(12A) 126mins

★★★★☆

THERE are always two sides to every story, right?

This powerful tale of fraught young friendship and motherhood has several sides, all played out in a thrilling and beautiful film.

PA

Written, produced and directed by Hirokazu Kore-eda, it follows single mum Saori (Sakura Ando) whose son Minato (Soya Kurokawa) starts behaving bizarrely.

The pair are mourning the loss of his father and Saori initially puts his strange disappearing acts and silent whisperings down to this.

But soon, she finds herself trying to take on the school after reports that the teacher is mistreating her son.

This plays out as almost dream-like, with the staff’s reactions equally as unnerving as her child’s.

Then the film starts again, to tell the story through the eyes of the teacher and finally the lad himself.

This is when all the curious behaviour starts to make sense.

Monster is intriguing and heart-breaking.

It is a story of unconditional love and the agony of how assumptions can destroy lives.

As so often is the case these days, the third part feels overlong.

But the unusual storytelling is enough to keep you hooked.

BOLAN’S SHOES

(15) 95mins

★☆☆☆☆

T. REX were one of the UK’s greatest bands, and Timothy Spall remains one of our most loved actors, but here, the combination of the two do not Get It On.

Written and directed by Ian Puleston-Davies (Owen from Coronation Street), produced by Terri Dwyer (Ruth from Hollyoaks) and also starring Louis Emerick (Mick from Brookside) there’s a definite whiff of soap opera around the outlandish plot twists.

Alamy

It is the tale of a group of care home kids whose lives are affected forever – in increasingly improbable ways – when they are involved in a bus crash on their way home from a T. Rex concert in 1973.

Jumping from the past to the present, mostly via the portals of a symbolic glittery platform boot, blowing bubbles, sparkly turquoise eyeshadow, and endlessly peering into shattered mirrors, even the acting chops of siblings Jimmy (Spall) and Penny (Line Of Duty’s Leanne Best) can’t perk up psychedelic proceedings this badly in need of a decent edit.

On the plus side, with Rolan Bolan (son of Marc) as associate producer, at least the soundtrack is good.

Laura Stott