Looking at the premise of Carolina Caroline on the surface, it’s all too easy to compare it to something like Bonnie & Clyde. Sure, Adam Carter Rehmeier‘s focuses on a loved-up couple and their cross country crime spree, but Tom Dean‘s script is far deeper than that set-up. For starters, the initial “criminal” of the two, Kyle Gallner‘s Oliver, justifies his light theft, waxing lyrical that the only victims of the kinds of crimes he perpetrates are those who can afford the losses – insurance companies and shareholders rather than the employees who toil for an hourly wage – something that the suggestible Caroline (Samara Weaving) agrees to when she wishes to learn the ways of the con. But to get to their crime committing, we have to know their origins, and Carolina Caroline allows us time to fall in love with them as a collective, immediately lacing proceedings with a genuine sense of heart and charm that carries all the way through its breezy 105 minutes.
The film begins with the imagery – set from a distance – of a woman racing out of a motel room, briefly throwing up by the side of a parked car, before stealing another at gunpoint. It’s a scene that asks its share of questions, all of which are eventually answered as Dean’s script takes us back three months to when the sweet Caroline, working at a small town convenience store, takes note of the passing-through Oliver, who utilises his charm to execute a confusing con of sorts regarding how much change he should receive. It’s genuinely a little mind-baffling at first hearing his logic, but it also makes sense as to why those on the receiving end hand over extra cash as supposed change. Oliver’s clearly proud of himself, but Caroline’s even more so in that she caught him; she lets him exit the store, but she takes a sense of pride in that she followed his deception so quickly.
She’s smitten, he’s intrigued, and together they take off on a road trip (he wants to go on “500 dates” with her), where they’ll pull off a series of bank robberies before reaching their intended South Carolina destination, where Caroline is hoping to reunite with her mother, yearning to understand why she abandoned her as a child. Small cons and lightweight bank robberies have their initial charm – the two even laugh off the fact that Caroline, who conceals her flowing blonde locks under a black bob wig and sunglasses, leaves the bag of money at the bank itself – but Caroline’s conscience can’t help but catch up with her. And when Oliver starts to express more violent tendencies, it frightens her into a sense that she’s now gone too far.
As easy as it could have been for Carolina Caroline to demonize Oliver, Dean’s script always portrays him as a man with a certain integrity, but perhaps a looser moral compass. He doesn’t want to hurt people, but he knows he has to if it threatens he and Caroline’s well being. She too is more than just a victim blinded by love. She sees his flaws, and is taken aback at some of his actions, but it’s never that she wants to distance herself from him. They genuinely love each other, and we can see it, which helps the film maintain its plausibility as to why they band together and remain on each other’s side – even in the face of punishment they’d surely face if they are ever caught.
Both predominant figures in the horror genre, Gallner (Red Eye, Jennifer’s Body, Strange Darling) and Weaving (Ready or Not, Azrael, Scream VI) are afforded more of an opportunity here to display their abilities outside of the films they are seemingly more known for. Both have delivered nuanced work in smaller, softer titles, but Carolina Caroline feels like a true showcase for them. Gallner is so effortless in how he charms on screen, and Weaving expresses a true sense of comedic sensibility and exposed vulnerability. They make Oliver and Caroline feel like genuine, lived-in people, and it’s because of how emotionally invested we are in them, both as individuals and as a couple, that their journey is all the more rousing; you’d also be hard pressed to not be absolutely devastated for Caroline, whose confidence is so ruthlessly shattered in the face of a biting bar patron (a cruel Kyra Sedgwick), in one of the film’s most heartbreaking sequences.
A romantic road movie, a con comedy and a taut heist drama all in one, Rehmeier continually pivots across mentalities without ever losing focus in Carolina Caroline. In fitting form it’s a movie that steals your heart when you least expect, but you truly don’t mind losing such, because you’re ultimately so impressed with each maneuver it made along the way.
FOUR STARS (OUT OF FIVE)
Carolina Caroline is screening as part of this year’s Toronto International Film Festival, running between September 4th and 14th, 2025. For more information on the festival, head to the official site here.
