A country girl, in tube socks and shorts, stocks the shelf at a filling station, eyeing the stranger who just walked in. He drives a cool Chevy. A fly buzzes against the windowpane. She stares at him with more than curiosity as he asks her boss if he could exchange smaller bills for a large bill. The bills move back and forth across the counter, accompanied by friendly small talk, all as the girl watches closely. She can’t figure the arithmetic exactly, but she’s 90% certain the guy somehow just conned them.
She doesn’t snitch. In fact, she watches him drive off with her heartbeat in her eyes, and, later that night, when she sees the Chevrolet parked at the local roadhouse, she pulls into the lot. She has to find him.
This is the “meet cute” of Caroline (Samara Weaving) and Oliver (Kyle Gallner), in “Carolina Caroline,” written by Tom Dean and directed by Adam Rehmeier. The meeting is anti-social as well as “cute,” not exactly on the level of “GoodFellas“‘s Karen Hill saying she was “turned on” when her boyfriend Henry gave her a gun to hide, but in the same universe. They sit at the roadhouse and talk. They flirt. They dance. He’s friendly and charismatic, warm rather than “cool,” and she’s smart, a little goofy, and eager to learn how he did that trick with the dollar bills. She’s always wanted to travel. He asks her where she’d like to go. “South Carolina,” she says. Before you know it, the two of them shake off the dust of the small town and hit the road.
Having seen “Badlands,” “Bonnie and Clyde,” and “Gun Crazy,” we all probably know which way this will go, and we wouldn’t be wrong. Oliver is an Artful Dodger, taking Caroline under his wing, teaching her the ropes. She tries lifting his wallet. She practices the money con. He gives her tips, psychological and technical. They graduate to more sophisticated cons, swiping wallets and running a scam on a bank card, until the inevitable: they decide to rob some banks. Greed isn’t the motivator. The money barely matters. It’s basically a fun thing for them to do together as a couple.
The progression is predictable, as are the ways in which they lose control of the mostly harmless crime spree they’ve been on. What isn’t predictable is the legitimate heat and chemistry between the two lead actors, a chemistry necessary for the film to do what it needs to do. Sometimes it’s important to show what a story isn’t as much as what it is.
This is not the story of a naive girl being “groomed” by a more experienced guy. He is not threatening, and he is almost never scary. She wants “in” from the moment she lays eyes on him. She’s drawn to the dollar-bill con, but she falls for him because he listens to her. They lust for each other, of course, but there is also tenderness and fun. They’re pals. Compare to the much chillier “Badlands,” or the crazed kill-spree lovers in “Natural Born Killers,” or even Bonnie and Clyde’s codependence and narcissism. Olivia and Caroline are their own people, even though the surrounding movie is something we’ve seen before, and it makes a world of difference.
The folie à deux vibe is unmistakable: Caroline would never have started robbing banks on her own, and maybe Oliver wouldn’t have “graduated” to larger jobs either. The tonal shifts get more extreme as the film careens towards its conclusion. Caroline is haunted by memories and absences: she got her heart broken before she even had a memory, and life has never been right for her since. Weaving suggests these hauntings, and when Caroline starts to deteriorate, it’s devastating. Gallner is extremely appealing, especially as he settles into boyfriend mode, his care and concern for Caroline always present.
Jon Gries has a small role as Caroline’s passive but loving father. Kyra Sedgwick shows up in a knock-out scene later in the film, representing a crucial turning-point for Caroline, who—in two months’ time—is so far removed from the lazy girl in tube socks seen in the opening scene, she didn’t even realize how far she had traveled. “How did we get here?” she asks at one point, disoriented. He doesn’t know either.
The needle drops are on point for a film that feels like a country-western song. The voices of Loretta Lynn, Emmylou Harris, Steve Earle, and Kris Kristofferson come from jukeboxes and radios, providing atmosphere and context rather than sounding like an imposed soundtrack.
When “Dinner in America,” Rehmeier’s previous film with Gallner, had a limited theatrical run a couple of years after its initial release, throngs of people showed up, dressed up like the two main characters. These characters really mean something to people. The film works on such a deep level.
One could imagine a version of “Dinner in America” told with tongue firmly planted in cheek. One could also imagine a version of “Carolina Caroline” told as an “homage” to crime-spree movie tropes, with all the style and no substance. We’ve all seen that movie a hundred times.
Rehmeier, though, cares about individuality, and he has a sense of humor. He doesn’t force chemistry, but he leaves lots of space for it. Chemistry isn’t about people being naked in bed. Chemistry is about how people listen to each other talk. Chemistry is about what we say in vulnerable moments and how our vulnerability is handled in response. Chemistry is finding each other funny or adorable. When Caroline and Oliver kiss, it’s not just hot or sexy. You can feel their relief. Finally, they are not alone in this weird, sad world.
