Another check off the bucket list: I saw a woman eat pussy on the big screen.

I didn’t know that the movie Drive-Away Dolls existed until a few days ago when I was asked to review it. Given the site that I write for, I assumed it must have lesbians in it, but the trailer did not make it obvious just how dykey this movie would be. In said trailer, the two leads hold hands once. So, I thought, “Okay, they’re implied gay. They’re gay-enough-that-we’ll-notice-it-but-it-won’t-register-to-straight-people gay.” I could not have been more wrong.

In case you haven’t caught this already, Drive-Away Dolls is an R-rated movie. So unlike the last movie I reviewed, this is not going to be one that you watch with your parents to show them that your lifestyle is just as normal and acceptable as theirs. The upside of that, however, is that there’s a lot of lesbian sex in it. And it’s actually good lesbian sex. The very first note I made when watching was “wet face – nice detail for eating out” because Jamie’s face was the normal amount of wet you’d expect your face to be after eating a woman out.

Here are the basics: It’s 1999 in Philadelphia, PA. Jamie, played by Margaret Qualley, is a lesbian and frankly kind of a fuckboy. Her friend Marian, played by Geraldine Viswanathan, is also a lesbian, but she hasn’t had sex in years. After Jamie gets kicked out by her ex-girlfriend, she tags along with Marian on a roadtrip to Florida. They use a driveaway service, so they are tasked with driving someone else’s car directly to a drop-off point. However, at Jamie’s suggestion, they hit up lesbian bars and other attractions along the way so that Marian can finally get laid. Their inability to deliver the car on time sets off a chain of hilarious and at times life-threatening events.

This movie was funny and outlandish. It also managed to pull off goofiness while still letting me take the intimacy seriously and enjoy it. There’s one scene where an entire women’s soccer team is making out with each other and it was enough to make me wonder if I should’ve stuck with softball after 7th grade. In another scene, Jamie is kissing a woman she brought home from the bar and I wrote down “nice kissing noises.” The bush I’m trying to beat around here is that this movie was kind of hot and my wife and I went home and had sex after we watched it.

“But Gabby,” you may ask, “Is there anything else in this movie besides lesbian sex?” Yes there is, even though I was happy just to watch women make out on screen without it feeling like a male-gazey porno. Some of you may know this already, but I’m actually a woman in STEM. A lot of the finer nuances of art and writing go beyond me. I read an interview with the directors where they refer to their movie as “low-brow” – I don’t know. Maybe I’m a simple dyke, but I really liked it.

Sidebar: I didn’t know until reading that article that Tricia Cooke is a self-identified lesbian, has been since at least the ’90s, and is also married to Ethan Coen. Apparently they have an open relationship so hopefully everything’s fine. The story of how they got together is very reminiscent of a few lesbians I know (myself included!) who were worn down by persistent guys into dating them. Everyone I know who’s had that experience realized, sometimes years later, that they were still lesbian even if they liked hanging out with their guy best friend. Tricia, if you need help, DM us.

I’ll get back to the movie now. Jamie is purportedly from Fort Worth, TX. I don’t know if the accent is supposed to be part of the joke, but I live in Texas and have never heard someone from Fort Worth with that heavy of an accent. Despite that, Qualley does a good job portraying a cute and charming player. Viswanathan is convincing in her role as a severely awkward lesbian who has no clue how to pick up women. They played well off each other and I wouldn’t mind seeing them together in more projects.

I also appreciated the costuming and makeup department for managing to create lesbians that actually kind of look like lesbians, which is pretty rare in film. I’ve already seen enough movies that feature the straightest-looking women I’ve ever seen kissing each other. Of course, as always, I think they could be butcher, but I’ll take what I can get.

Like a lot of R-rated movies, it does have one gross-out moment that’s going to stick with me forever. I would’ve thought at the beginning of the movie that the moment was Pedro Pascal getting stabbed in the neck with a wine opener. However, this is not the moment. If you watch this movie, please be aware of a scene in which a woman is naked in a backyard pool. She gets out of the pool and – I’m not kidding – immediately puts cowboy boots on. On her bare, wet, feet. I was DISGUSTED.

Jokes aside, I liked Drive-Away Dolls. It was noteworthy for portraying lesbians in a way that felt real and relatable, and it was fun and at times laugh-out-loud funny too. When we went, it was a Tuesday evening on opening week and the only people in the entire theater were myself, my wife, and a heterosexual couple, so I’m not sure if the fact that this movie is super lesbian has gotten out yet. If you take a date to see it now, you just might get the theater to yourselves. Do with that what you will.

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