TIFF 2025 | ‘Carolina Caroline’ twists the Bonnie and Clyde story for the turn of the century as a couple stages a crime spree across the American south.
“Carolina Caroline” is a fiery blend of romance and crime that crackles with energy, driven by Samara Weaving and Kyle Gallner’s irresistible chemistry. Set against a ‘70s West Texas backdrop, the film turns small-time cons into a stylish, music-fueled crime spree that builds toward an inevitable crash. Director Adam Carter Rehmeier keeps the thrills high while asking whether the love is real or just another beautiful lie. Sexy, daring, and slyly subversive, it’s a crime romance worth taking for a ride.
“Carolina Caroline“ premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival.
“Let’s rob the whole world.” When titular Caroline mutters those words in the passenger seat of a hot-wired muscle car your heart skips a beat. It flutters from the romance of it. After all, she and her bank robbing beau Oliver fell in love over the fiery energy and adrenaline of committing a crime. But in the pit of your stomach you know that it can’t last because you’ve seen this story told countless times. You know that this kind of love and passion needs to have its tragic end. Its those expectations that writer-director Adam Carter Rehmeier relies on. Robbery and romance are just a part great American tale at the end of the day.
Despite the familiar, “Carolina Caroline” constantly feels exciting. It’s like being behind the wheel of a vintage sports car. The rumble and purr of the engine gets your adrenaline going because you know the second you hit the gas there’s no slowing down. There’s a charming rhythm to the way Caroline and Oliver banter from the moment they meet cute over a small-time con he pulls off in the gas station she works at. It’s love at first fraud. Samara Weaving (“Ready or Not“) and Kyle Gallner (“Strange Darling“) ooze with charisma on screen. The 70s West Texas world of the film is built entirely on their backs. Their thick southern drawls, easy charm and instant chemistry immediately transport you.
Their steamy tryst culminates in a proposition. Oliver asks Caroline for 500 dates. An offer Caroline can’t quickly refuse seeing as she’s never been outside of West Texas. Oliver’s easy cool, like a scruffy 70s James Dean, also isn’t easily refused. Just like his marks for a swindle, he seems to know what Caroline wants before she does. Thus begins a country music-driven romp through a slice of Americana as Oliver teaches Caroline the art of the grift—pickpocketing, hot-wiring and smooth talking—with the same breezy confidence that made Steven Soderbergh’s “Ocean’s Eleven” a modern classic.
However, petty theft has its limitations and Caroline and Oliver have a hunger for more just as their desire for each other grows. After all, justifying their actions by saying they’re stealing back from the corporations stealing from them doesn’t exactly work when they’re robbing small town gas stations. So, donning a severe black bob, dark sunglasses and a set of killer outfits, they set their sights on something bigger—the banks. Caroline hatches a series of bank robberies across the South with Oliver as getaway driver. Their debaucherous and sexy crime spree is impossible to resist.
But the real brilliance of “Carolina Caroline” becomes obvious when it comes careening towards its inevitable conclusion. When you realize that you were the mark. Because if there’s anything more American than robbery, it’s lies. Just as Caroline and Oliver lie to themselves, and each other, they also convince us that this wasn’t a romanticized dream and that one day they’d drive off into the sunset having done justice. There aren’t any easy answers as to what is real and what is just a convincing lie they are telling themselves—or we are telling ourselves.
Rehmeimer isn’t interested in guiding us to any sort of conclusions about the characters either. Their motivations are mostly kept close to their chests other than a scintillating one scene barn-burner performance from Kyra Sedgwick that pushes Caroline even further into her debauched decisions. Instead he convinces us of their love story and then asks the same questions Caroline asks herself, “are we good people doing bad things?” Instead of answering that question, “Carolina Caroline” asks us if the love was real or just another way to avoid reality. And what is more American than that?
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Hey! I’m Karl. You can find me on Twitter and Letterboxd. I’m also a Tomatometer-approved critic.
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