GENRE | Samara Weaving Robs Sweet 'Carolina Caroline'

"Do you want to go on like five-hundred dates with me?"

Magnolia Pictures / Vortex Media

Together, the laidback duo of Samara Weaving and Kyle Gallner, they star as a sexy, Southern bank-robbing couple in Adam Carter Rehmeier's romantic crime thriller, Carolina Caroline. Both are lovable small-time con artists who dream of a simple but better life together on the road, who try not to target actual victims that might actually hurt.

It's a refreshingly low-key setup fronted by the two likeable drifters driving and robbing banks across the South while keeping their criminal antics on the down-low. Both Jon Gries and Kyra Sedgwick show up briefly but memorably as Weaving's long-separated loving father and disastrous mother. Screenwriter Tom Dean's script comes together as a portrait of wounded characters looking for a way out of their menial lives in rural America.

Carolina Caroline takes a contemporary indie Bonnie and Clyde approach to its Badlands romantic material about criminal lovers on the run. Rehmeier's wistful direction anchors its entertaining but melancholic style. There are few conflicts, other than not getting caught or stealing enough money, as the charmer of a film centres itself on the thrill of the con or job over the actual cash score.


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