CAROLINA CAROLINE – Review by Diane Carson
Carolina Caroline lacks imagination and complexity
A sophomoric Bonnie & Clyde/Badlands copycat, director Adam Carter Rehmeier’s Carolina Caroline lacks complex characters and narrative creativity. Beginning three months after the main events, and thereby squandering any suspense concerning who will survive, Caroline (Samara Weaving) exits a motel room, throws up, and, after a driver exits his truck, steals it. Flashback to Caroline working in a rural Texas gas station when Oliver (Kyle Gallner) perpetrates a money payment/exchange con on the clerk. Confronting him, Caroline becomes enamored of his sophomoric philosophical justification and, shortly thereafter, agrees to hit the road with him, shoplifting, picking pockets, and robbing small town banks disguised with sunglasses and a black wig that is clearly exactly that. Unfortunately, this self-described “Southern gothic romantic crime thriller” fails to develop Oliver or Caroline beyond knee jerk simplicity.
For her part, Caroline has a supportive father in Hank (Jon Gries), and yet she yearns to know her mother who left shortly after Caroline’s birth. Intent on tracking her down in South Carolina (hence the title), Caroline and Oliver pull one quickly executed, petty bank robbery after another, sandwiched between boring love scenes. To its credit, no gratuitous nudity and no reliance on vulgar language mar the story. Nevertheless, cross cutting between the nascent romance and the criminal activity is a failed attempt to add interest since, with one exception, those encounters are quickly executed. Folk and country songs repeated ad nauseum struggle to infuse energy into the narrative, dominating transitions for numerous scenes that appear quickly shot and useless in terms of adding appealing content. Visually, Caroline/Weaving is fetishized throughout the film, with parted lips and a wide-eyed stare her substitute for emotional depth or character development.
The best scene involves Caroline’s mother (Kyra Sedgwick) who steals the film with a masterful, explosive performance in a nicely staged bar scene. Sedgwick demonstrates what great acting looks like, meaning the ability to convey the complexity of a character within minutes. Then the shallow and thoroughly predictable ‘drama’ reemerges with a thudding blow. Carolina Caroline is at cinemas now.
