She decides to ditch her hometown and join Oliver as his partner in crime with a single caveat: that they make their way to South Carolina to locate her mother, who skipped out on her when she was just a few months old. There’s a pang of guilt over leaving her father (Jon Gries), but he hands over $60 and his blessing as the two hit the road. The pair mostly stick to small-time swindles, but a traumatic experience drives Caroline to raise the stakes. A black wig, oval sunglasses, and bright red lipstick transform the small-town girl into a stone-cold criminal, with Oliver acting as her capable getaway driver. It doesn’t take long for the law to start trailing them, and a sense of impending doom begins to befall the lovers. With each robbery, Caroline and Oliver only grow more impassioned—both sexually and emotionally—but as they say, it’s only a matter of time before one’s luck runs out.
The script, by William Thomas Dean IV, is a deal less twee than some of Rehmeier’s other films. This allows the characters to seem distinctly more adult as opposed to the arrested development and sheltered attitudes on display in the filmmaker’s other works. Gallner and Weaving are electric together, their sweat and saliva as intoxicating to their characters as the liquor they use to quell their nerves after each heist. There’s something about Weaving that doesn’t quite sell her character’s rural Texas origins; aside from the accent, she possesses what can only be described as “Australia face” (shared with her doppelgänger Margot Robbie). But even the wobbly aspects of Carolina Caroline are endearing. The Texan affect might not be spot-on, some of the dialogue is a bit leaden, and one specific emotional scene is a tad more hackneyed than human. But the cinematic scrappiness echoes that of the film’s central duo, establishing criminal and carnal finesse as time goes on. Also elevating the overall mood is composer (and Grizzly Bear frontman) Chris Bear, whose score feels inspired by anxious-electro predecessors Tangerine Dream’s work on Sorcerer and Thief, though decidedly more subtle.
Despite the evident reward of working with new collaborators, Rehmeier’s visual style is preserved and elevated through the lens of his frequent cinematographer Jean-Philippe Bernier. The orange haze of summer is imbued with an equally warm nostalgia, causing the image to appear soft, as if each scene is viewed through the inebriated gaze of Oliver and Caroline after a night of celebratory boozing. The wood-panelled interiors that are prevalent in this time and place are also a lovely touch, likely an effort on the part of production designer Francesca Palombo, who has worked with the director since Dinner In America. The sleek cars, freshly-inked newspapers, and sticky-floored bars with cigarette machines are all necessary details that are absorbing, never distracting. Costume designers Anaïs Castaldi and Hannah Greenblatt also return to work their magic, most notably with sexy looks for the impossibly gorgeous Weaving: red, white, and blue ensembles perfectly accentuate her tan abs and azure eyes. But Gallner steals the show, his bad boy with a heart of gold more raw and less cringe than the aggro rocker he played in Dinner In America.
Carolina Caroline is a story we’ve seen play out a million times. Pierrot Le Fou, Badlands, True Romance, and on and on. But there’s a down-to-earth quality here that eludes so many of these other iconic capers, and that’s what sweeps you up in the romance and ramshackle cons that propel the narrative. The adrenaline stems from the idea that any of us could want something—be it love, security, a shot at something bigger than we’ve ever dreamed of—so badly that we decide to just take it. Things might not exactly pan out, but taking a shot in the dark has got to be worth more than being too scared to pull the trigger in the first place.
Director: Adam Carter Rehmeier
Writer: William Thomas Dean IV
Starring: Samara Weaving, Kyle Gallner, Jon Gries, Kyra Sedgwick
Release Date: June 5, 2026
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