Carolina Caroline

I see a lot of movies, and one of my favorite things is discovering something on screen that feels completely new. That’s becoming harder and harder to find these days. What I also love, though, is when a filmmaker takes a familiar story and makes it feel fresh while still reminding you of the classics that inspired it. Road-trip crime movies certainly aren’t new. Films like Bonnie and Clyde, Thelma & Louise, and Natural Born Killers have long since earned their place in cinema history. Adam Rehmeier’s new film Carolina Caroline clearly has those movies in its DNA, but it still manages to carve out its own identity, taking viewers on one intoxicating ride.

For Caroline Daniels (Samara Weaving), life is pretty simple. She lives with her father (Jon Gries) and works at a local gas station in the small town where she grew up. That’s all about to change. One quiet day, a man named Oliver (Kyle Gallner) walks into the store, and Caroline catches him pulling a fast one with some cash. Something about it doesn’t sit right with her, so she confronts him. Instead of backing down, though, she finds herself drawn in by his charm, while Oliver is equally intrigued by her boldness.

The two quickly grow closer, and before long, Caroline decides to leave town with him and learn his way of life. The lessons start small, with Oliver teaching her how to confuse cashiers and manipulate transactions. But success has a way of breeding ambition, and soon the stakes get bigger. Much bigger. Before long, they’ve moved on to robbing banks, and after Caroline learns her way around a gun, the pair become surprisingly good at it. Of course, greed has a way of complicating things. While no one gets hurt during their early robberies, it’s only a matter of time before they’re forced to make choices that could change everything.

Written by Tom Dean, Carolina Caroline never leaves the audience guessing about where things are headed. The destination is clear from the get-go, but that doesn’t make the journey any less compelling. Dean’s script does a great job weaving together Caroline and Oliver’s exploits, building toward an ending that feels earned. The film balances danger, romance, and tragedy beautifully, and there’s a genuine spark between its two leads that practically jumps off the screen.

With a movie like this, you expect the robberies, the shootouts, and the escalating stakes. What you may not expect is how much you end up caring about the characters. Even when you know what they’re doing is wrong, Caroline and Oliver are so charismatic and likable that it’s easy to get caught up in their world right alongside them.

Carolina Caroline may feel familiar, but it still finds a way to make the ride feel fresh. Much of that comes from the chemistry between Gallner and Weaving, which is absolutely electric. They feel like two people constantly testing their limits, both individually and together, and that connection fuels every scene they share. As actors, they seem perfectly matched, and the film is all the better for it.

There’s never a lull here. Carolina Caroline comes flying out of the gate and rarely takes its foot off the gas. The momentum keeps things exciting, but it’s the quieter moments of character development that really power the film. In the end, Rehmeier delivers a crime story that’s equal parts tragic and exhilarating—a joyride that’s hard to resist.

Brian Taylor

Member of the North Texas Film Critics Association, and lover of all things Cinema