Who doesn’t love a good movie about the Con? Both myself and our new writer Paul Gratton both loved the new release CAROLINA CAROLINE, which I was lucky to see at last fall’s Toronto International Film Festival and Paul was able to screen recently. Read below for both of our reactions, and DO find this movie in a cinema near you!
About: In the 2026 crime thriller Carolina Caroline, restless Texas gas station clerk Caroline (Samara Weaving) runs away with a charismatic drifter and con artist named Oliver (Kyle Gallner). The couple embarks on an escalating crime spree across the Southeast, driven by Caroline’s mission to find her estranged, alcoholic mother in South Carolina
Paul’s Reaction: In the tradition of Badlands and Bonnie and Clyde, this is a great little indie film about a couple of Southern American con artists who take to robbing banks for a living. Australian actress Samara Weaving is extraordinary as a doe-eyed, dewy-lipped Texas blonde who falls for a charming rogue who pulls into her father’s run-down gas station one day. Her gradual transformation into a successful con artist and eventually one of the Southern states’ most wanted is actually believable, as the film roams from one dingy bar to another, ultimately ending up in South Carolina where Caroline gets to confront the mother who abandoned her at a young age. Kyra Segdwick steals the show in her brief but mesmerizing scene as a harridan from hell, not the regret-filled victim Caroline was hoping to find. Perhaps not quite up to the levels of Faye Dunaway and Sissy Spacek in similar roles, but Weaving makes you care for her character no matter how morally confused she might get. An evocative visit to the current American South.
Rating: 7 out of 10
Jason’s Reaction: I also wanted to chime in for my love for this movie, which I was happy to see at last fall’s Toronto International Film Festival but didn’t get a chance to write about in my busy time over its 11 days of endless screenings (that sounds BAD but trust me, there were so many movies to see!). This is a LOT of fun and also transcends a lot of mistakes smaller filmmakers can make with material like this. It shows errors, it lets its characters learn and adapt, and I also admired how the filmmakers give both Samara Weaving (who is a vastly underrated talent and should be an A-list movie star) and Kyle Gallner (ditto) their time to shine on screen Many smaller movies usually have their characters sound the same, but they have such a chemistry here and I loved how they each had their own voice on the con.
I’m kind of sad this is having such a small theatrical release and its marketing feels like it’s being pushed over by bigger movies right now, as this is the kind of festival title that has the power to break through to modern audiences. But here we are on our little but mighty film blog trying to carry the torch.
Rating: 8 out of 10
(not to over-shadow Paul’s rating, but at the very least he got me to switch to the 10 point rating system for our site so I must respect the master!)
