“Carolina Caroline”, the somewhat complicated title of the new film by Adam Rehmeier (“Dinner In America”), which is celebrating its German premiere at the Fantasy Filmfest, stands for the southern US state of South Carolina, which serves as the setting for some of the decisive moments of this gangster ballad. On the other hand, he refers to Caroline Daniels, a stunning Texan beauty who works as an inexperienced gas station clerk and gets caught up in a whirlpool of dramatic events. In the first moments of the film you see Caroline (a radiant Samara Weaving) leaving her hotel in a black wig and sunglasses, shortly afterwards carjacking a car, taking off her disguise and driving towards the sun. What is she up to? Who is she running from? What has she done? Before the audience can ask themselves these questions, the film jumps back three months and gradually provides the explanation.
At a gas station job in Texas, Caroline meets the conman Oliver (Kyle Gallner with a goofy dachshund look) when he helps her boss cheat out of a small sum of change. Instead of denouncing him, she gets into his car, has sleight of hand explained to him and soon even introduces him to her father. Oliver and Caroline recognize each other as kindred spirits who want to wrest a bit of joie de vivre, joy and romance from an indifferent world. Together they decide to visit Caroline’s estranged mother in South Carolina – and rob a whole bunch of banks on the way there. Film history has taught us, not just since “Bonnie & Clyde,” that things like this rarely end well.
Oliver (Kyle Gallner) teaches Caroline (Samara Weaving) how to shoot – and that becomes urgently needed later!
Film history might be a good keyword here anyway, especially if you read some of the reviews of “Carolina Caroline”. One gets the impression that many critics resent director Rehmeier’s certain classicism and the fact that, following his predecessors, who were clearly oriented towards American independent films, this time he is staging a very traditional material largely without any breaks, special social-critical undertones or formal experiments. He starts off very slowly. The opening sequence with the car robbery suggests a classic genre material, but after that Rehmeier slows down the pace considerably until you almost feel like you’re in a tender romantic comedy.
Romantic get-to-know-you conversations in restaurants, dimly lit sex scenes in fields, sun-drenched landscape panoramas, gentle cuts, plus dreamy country standards as the constant accompaniment: Rehmeier gives his protagonists all the time in the world to fall in love with each other, lulling both the fateful lovers and his audience into safety for a long time. The fact that you like to stay tuned, even though you were initially promised a different film, is due to several factors. On the one hand, there is Rehmeier’s directorial care. On the other hand, the clever script by William Thomas Dean IV, which repeatedly intersperses subtle hints about problems hidden beneath the surface, such as Caroline’s complicated relationship with her mother.
At some point there will be no turning back!
However, the biggest asset that Rehmeier and the film can use are the two fantastic leading actors Kyle Gallner and Samara Weaving. Both Gallner and Weaving have established reputations as reigning stars with appearances in genre productions such as Smile, Scream 5 and Strange Darling and Ready Or Not, Scream 6 and The Babysitter respectively Scream King & Queen developed. Both throw themselves into their roles and the opportunity to be at the center of a somewhat different story with dedication and an enormous amount of charisma.
Only after a little more than half of the running time is the breaking point of the story reached; Caroline and Oliver have crossed the Rubicon and are from now on locked together in a community of fate. And the audience with them. Because now Rehmeier’s leisurely preparatory work from the first half of the film is paying off. He has brought the lovers closer to us so skillfully that we root for them and follow them everywhere, regardless of whether it is death or the devil.
The chemistry between the stars is the greatest strength of “Carolina Caroline”.
Accordingly, in the last third he tightens the thumbscrews, increases the tempo, lets the music thunder, builds in chases and suspense moments, switches from the romantic honky-tonk country of the first half to the melancholic minor register of Townes Van Zandt’s “Tecumseh Valley” until he lets the narrative culminate in a tried-and-tested showdown with ultra-romantic gestures in a Western bar.
One can certainly perceive “Carolina Caroline” as lacking in surprises and overly conventional, but this does neither do justice to its emotional intensity nor its almost mythical power. Because it will certainly be clear to Rehmeier that he is not reinventing the wheel here. What he manages to do, however, has become rare: interpreting an archetypal material with universal identification potential in his own way and successfully bringing it into the present.
Conclusion: “Fuck it – Let’s Rob The Whole World!” With “Carolina Caroline”, with the active help of Samara Weaving and Kyle Gallner, Adam Rehmeier creates an emotionally gripping, melancholic outsider ballad with Southern Gothic elements. With references to modern classics such as “Bonnie & Clyde”, “Thelma & Louise” and “True Romance”, but completely independent in tone and design, the film is a lastingly impressive piece of timeless American ultra-romanticism.