With the soulful appeal of the Jonathan Edwards song that shares its name, Carolina Caroline is a sweet, slick road movie about a woman yearning to find herself. Finding love instead, she starts robbing banks.
In his latest slice of anarchic Americana, writer-director Adam Carter Rehmeier first introduces us to the always effervescent Samara Weaving (Guns Akimbo, TIFF ’19) as Caroline. Listless and living a small life in a small town, she dutifully cares for her single father (Jon Gries) though she longs to break from her dusty and dull world. But when she observes a handsome drifter (Kyle Gallner) pull a sly con for a few bucks, her curiosity sparks an introduction that ignites an apprenticeship. Before long, their lucrative, if untenable, criminal enterprise dovetails into a passionate romance.
As with his jagged romantic comedy Dinner in America (which also featured Gallner), Rehmeier again captures an unlikely relationship that crackles with chemistry and embodies an authentic sweetness. Gallner and Weaving seductively sizzle together as their small-time swindles escalate and earn them a reputation (and an arrest warrant) worthy of Bonnie and Clyde.
It may be a familiar star-crossed scenario, but Rehmeier’s spry direction, a rhapsodic script from Tom Dean (also making his feature debut at the Festival with Charlie Harper), and the judicious deployment of country music needle-drops combine to maintain an infectiously swooning momentum where hope springs eternal — at least within the measures of a long embrace on a honky-tonk dance floor.
Complete with a striking supporting turn from Kyra Sedgwick, shrewdly deployed at a critical juncture to rattle Caroline’s confidence, Carolina Caroline harkens back to a bygone brew of outlaw romance that is sure to appeal to lovers of every stripe… with the exception of bank managers.
PETER KUPLOWSKY
Content advisory: violence, coarse language, sexually suggestive content
Screenings
TIFF Lightbox 1
Scotiabank 3
Scotiabank 1
Scotiabank 13
Scotiabank 3
Scotiabank 2