Caroline and Oliver, the outlaw protagonists of “Carolina Caroline” performed by Samara Weaving and Kyle Gallner, are like characters in a Bruce Springsteen track: two lovers, born to run, surviving on schemes and unbridled ardour for one another, who can’t see the water rising round them till it’s as much as their necks. Collectively, they characterize a basic on-screen American duo, beforehand immortalized in lovers-on-the-run movies like “They Reside By Evening,” “Bonnie and Clyde,” and “Badlands.” However Caroline and Oliver are the varieties of people that have by no means seen these motion pictures — they’re blissfully unaware that the story of their relationship is an outdated one, and it doesn’t have a contented ending.
Written by Tom Dean — his second credited doomed romance to premiere at this 12 months’s Toronto Worldwide Movie Competition following “Charlie Harper” — and directed by the underrated Adam Carter Rehmeier, a chronicler of misfit Americana, “Carolina Caroline” traffics in archetypal storytelling and imagery. A much less charitable description can be “generic.” There aren’t any actual surprises within the movie, narratively or in any other case. The second that seasoned con artist Oliver walks into the West Texas filling station the place Caroline works, packing a sly smile and a cheeky rip-off up his sleeve, you realize precisely how their love affair will prove. In truth, you possibly can set a watch to its predictable developments.
Granted, this isn’t inherently a foul factor. Resonant tales develop into templates and enduring characters develop into fashions for a motive. It may be enjoyable to observe gifted folks play the hits, and even attempt to imbue them with some novelty. Weaving and Gallner are greater than as much as the duty of respiratory real emotion into their worn characters. A small city woman who longs to journey however can solely initially dream as far South Carolina (her derelict mom lives there), Caroline may very well be too naïve or inept by a half within the incorrect arms. However Weaver instills the character with simply the correct amount of crafty that she by no means comes throughout as a easy sufferer. She is aware of what she’s entering into when she asks Oliver what he does for a residing; she needs to drag scams with the gorgeous boy who occurred to cross by means of her city.
Equally, Oliver might have coasted on the sum complete of type eyes and unflappable swagger, however Gallner lends him a potent romantic streak. His love for Caroline isn’t as soon as doubtful; he could also be a conman in his blood, however he would by no means make her his mark. He displays genuine sensitivity when he’s dancing along with her in a bar or when he shakes the hand of her father (Jon Gries) earlier than they go away Texas for good. Oliver additionally isn’t a nihilist or a category warrior, regardless of paying lip service to the victimless nature of stealing from insured banks and shops. His motivations are somewhat mysterious, however one will get the sense he simply likes an iterant way of life and the fun of the con, base enthusiasms that Caroline gleefully embraces the minute he shares along with her the methods of the commerce.
Gallner and Weaver’s erotic chemistry, which begins at a simmer however rapidly reaches a boil, helps easy out the lumpier patches in “Carolina Caroline” that comprise the movie’s center part. Caroline conveniently grows a conscience proper across the time when the couple begins robbing banks in earnest. She realizes that donning a Mia Wallace-style wig whereas waving a gun round doesn’t all of the sudden make her a unique individual; she’s nonetheless the one instilling concern in harmless folks. Caroline has one other apparent epiphany: regardless of his allure and knowhow, Oliver is, no kidding, a legitimately harmful character, somebody who would threaten a lodge worker with a gun whereas delivering room service. Gallner and Weaver can solely accomplish that a lot with these scenes that largely really feel like going by means of the motions. “Carolina Caroline” additionally stops useless in its tracks when it makes an pointless detour for Caroline to satisfy her alcoholic mom (Kyra Sedgwick), which steels her resolve to outrun the previous as soon as and for all.
Set within the indefinite 20th century—a spot the place payphones, newspapers, and coin-operated jukeboxes dot the panorama—“Carolina Caroline” effortlessly generates a much less related world on a budget with sensible manufacturing design and costuming. Rehmeier’s common cinematographer Jean-Philippe Bernier brings an applicable heat to the movie’s visible palette, producing a dreamlike tone to the imagery befitting the protagonists’ self-image. On the similar time, the movie may also really feel too formally slick, particularly in comparison with the gritty, heightened naturalism of Rehmeier’s earlier two movies “Dinner in America” and “Snack Shack.” The short-cutting montages of con jobs, in addition to the wall-to-wall soundtrack, not solely carry the dismaying really feel of tv, but in addition render the movie frictionless for repeated stretches. The concept appears to be for audiences to get off on the fantasy as a lot as Caroline and Oliver, however the movie’s ostensibly dizzying highs are when it feels at most imitative and least plausible.
Nevertheless, when “Carolina Caroline” inevitably enters its determined ultimate act, the chapter of the movie when our heroes know they’re doomed, it shifts into an unexpectedly emotional gear relative to its typical basis. Rehmeier has beforehand demonstrated his facility with actors earlier than, garnering distinctive performances from relative newcomers to seasoned actors alike. However with “Carolina Caroline,” the primary movie he hasn’t written, that ability shares centerstage as a lot because the performers themselves. Each Weaving and Gallner excel taking part in distressed criminals who really feel the warmth on their tail, however the way in which that misery curdles into shared heartbreak and grief as they slowly attain readability attracts critical blood. Their final moments collectively is probably not distinctive within the particulars — in truth, you’ve doubtless seen a model of it not less than just a few instances earlier than — and but, for a quick second, their love and ache develop into tangible. When the hits are bulletproof, generally all you want is a good cowl band to make them really feel contemporary once more.
Grade: B
“Carolina Caroline” premiered on the 2025 Toronto Worldwide Movie Competition. It’s presently searching for U.S. distribution.
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