The film aspires to be a heartfelt drama/comedy about an introverted, wheelchair-using college student with Muscular Dystrophy (RJ Mitte's titular character) who finds an unlikely opposite in his driver, Scott (Ray William Johnson), whose joking nature hides the fact that he, too, has sadness in his life. Michael Carlock's script  sends the two on a spontaneous, cliche road trip to Las Vegas (with Doug's friend Stephanie, whose dialogue and agency extends to saying "This is awesome." Scott tries to coax Doug from his shell (inspiring the script's cringe-inducing bookend of Doug writing a personal essay about turtles) by taking him gambling and getting him to lose his virginity to a prostitute. As the two grow closer through a set of twists, "Who's Driving Doug" takes the exact trajectory one might expect.

The movie fails to create a full character out of Doug beyond his disability and general social awkwardness. Mitte's broad performance matches filmmaking that paints a muddy picture of the hero's specific disability. A respiratory machine is treated as important in one scene, but is apparently not needed for the road trip. The same goes with any standards of required care-giving, making Scott's out-of-nowhere hiring as a driver (he saw a flyer outside of Doug's college) feel like an ugly contrivance. As if to prove it's not a typical drama about a disabled character, the film goes out of its way to argue that Doug just wants to be treated as "normal," even though Scott thinks the concept is impossible. But "Who's Driving Doug" undercuts this ambition by defining Mitte's character mostly by his Muscular Dystrophy, without giving us enough information to see him as a fleshed-out human being.

"Who's Driving Doug" gives further credence to the idea that problematic films are often built from a foundation of creative laziness. As Scott, Johnson has a contagious discomfort whether he's stumbling through smug zingers (telling quadriplegic jokes, nicknaming Doug "Rollercop") or hollow dramatic centerpieces. Considering the material he's been given, who can blame him? The character is always on his cell phone: talking on it, texting with it, dramatically tossing it across the bathroom. Neither mask that Scott wears conjures any sympathy by the time of his unintentionally laugh-out-loud grand finale, which will at least make for a strong conclusion to a fake YouTube trailer when his performance is chopped up to make him a cheesy villain in Doug's story.

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