Club Benefits
- Rating: 3.5/5 stars
- Verdict: It's nice to see Samara Weaving in something other than a horror movie, because she shows off some range in "Carolina Caroline." The movie starts as a whirlwind romance but quickly turns into its own version of Bonnie and Clyde. Once the romance drama becomes a crime thriller, it grips you and doesn't let go until the very end.
- Where to watch: See "Carolina Caroline" in theaters now
When you think of the biggest summer movies to watch this year, you're probably not thinking of "Carolina Caroline." It's no blockbuster. It's a low-budget indie crime thriller that debuted at the Toronto International Film Festival last year and is finally getting released in U.S. theaters this week. Chances are you haven't even heard of it, let alone considering seeing it at your local cinema.
But you should definitely put this movie on your radar, especially if you love a crime movie that grabs your attention and doesn't let go. Admittedly, this one is a slow burn at first. It really feels like a romance movie for the first 30 minutes or so, and you start to question what the point of the movie even is. After the half-hour mark, though, you quickly learn that the point of the movie is simple: rob banks until you get caught.
Malcolm has been with Tom's Guide since 2022. He watches dozens of new releases every year to make sure you don't have to watch any of the bad ones.
'Carolina Caroline' starts slow then doesn't let go
"Carolina Caroline" stars Samara Weaving as the titular Caroline, a gas station attendant in middle-of-nowhere Texas. She's never made it out of her hometown; she's never envisioned making it anywhere besides Texas and South Carolina. But that all changes when she meets Oliver (Kyle Gallner), a con man who she watches pull a short-change scam on her boss.
She's enthralled by the con and the promise of something more that Oliver's arrival brings. But for the first act of the movie, all we get is a whirlwind romance between an infatuated woman and a man who isn't going to say no when Samara Weaving comes onto him. It's during this act of the story that we also learn Caroline and her father (Jon Gries) were abandoned by her mother (Kyra Sedgwick) when Caroline was an infant.
Seeing a way to maybe get to her mother, who is in South Carolina, Caroline tells Oliver she wants to pull cons. That forms a budding Bonnie and Clyde dynamic, which escalates quickly once Caroline decides she's done robbing people and instead wants to rob banks.
At this point, the movie shifts gears. The pace quickens, the tone takes on some urgency. After a robbery goes wrong, the movie even switches from its Americana soundtrack to a tense, thrilling original score for the duration of the couple's escape from the police. From the moment that the criminal element comes into this movie, and characters stop seductively stripping down to their underwear in front of a car's headlights, this movie grabs you and doesn't let go until the very end.
Verdict: I want to see more of this from Samara Weaving
Now, I say that the movie ditches the romance flick for a crime thriller after the first act, but some elements of the former still linger. Caroline and Oliver do clearly love (or at least, intensely lust after) each other, and we see moments of that romance. The movie also doesn't make any attempt to shy away from highlighting Samara Weaving's physical attractiveness.
Still, this is a different performance for Weaving than the scream queen vibe she seems to have been pigeonholed into. It's not like she's never made a non-horror movie before, but between "The Babysitter," "Ready or Not" and an appearance in the "Scream" franchise, you'd be forgiven for thinking she had a type.
But in "Carolina Caroline," she gets to show off some range, both within the movie itself and compared to the rest of her resume. It may seem like a lazy comparison, given they're both talented, blonde, attractive, Australian women, but you really can see shades of Margot Robbie in her performance in this crime thriller. It's not the physical attributes either; it's the way she shifts from bubbly to overeager, to on edge and then totally breaking down at various points in the movie that brings back memories of Robbie as Harley Quinn or her performance in "The Wolf of Wall Street."
If you want to see Weaving's performance for yourself, it's worth checking out in theaters. The movie is certainly good enough to earn you spending money, even if it means breaking out your larger bills (once you see the movie, you'll get that reference). If you wait for "Carolina Caroline" to arrive on one of the best streaming services (likely HBO Max) because you're too busy trying to see like "Obsession" and "Backrooms," it won't be the end of the world. From a technical perspective, this movie is as well-suited for the home theater as it is the real deal. But if you like to reward quality, original filmmaking, then this crime thriller is worth a night out at the movies, or at least a matinee.
"Carolina Caroline" is in theaters now
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