Carolina Caroline
— Kevin Fullam
How many tales about small-time bank robbers end with them riding off into the sunset, unscathed? It’s too tempting to keep pushing one’s luck. Just one more. One last score.
The explosion of retail banking in the 1980s led to an epidemic in bank robberies. In Los Angeles, stickups reached a peak of over 10 per day in 1992. One hooligan, nicknamed the Yankee Bandit by the FBI, knocked off six banks in four hours. Without ubiquitous street cameras and cell phones, it often took a while for law enforcement to zero in on these miscreants.
Of course, with every roll of the dice, the odds ramp up just a bit more. It generates more heat. Rob one bank and lay low? You’d probably get away with it back then. Rob five or ten? Maybe you’ll get your photo plastered onto the front page of the local paper. And with enough hold-ups, eventually a task force will be assigned to reel you in. But that doesn’t stop you. Just one more.
Let’s back up a bit. Caroline (Samara Weaving), working in her father’s convenience store in rural Texas, sees a young drifter pull off a quick-change scam on her pop at the register. She follows him to his car and wryly calls him out on it. The drifter, Oliver (Kyle Gallner), is impressed by the fact that she was clever enough to notice and discreet enough to approach him in private. It’s clear they’re flirting with each other. He asks if she’d like to join him and learn more. She would. And so they’re off.
Before long, Caroline is getting a crash course in the ways of the Small-Time Con, quickly graduating from sleight-of-hand to more elaborate capers. One affable businessman gets his bank account emptied via a two-person telephone scam; a decent con man will rob his mark, but it takes a superior hustler to leave his prey feeling relieved and grateful while he’s unknowingly being cleaned out.
And so this would-be Bonnie & Clyde moves on up to the big time: banks. It’s a pretty basic MO. Caroline waltzes in with a black wig and waves a gun, while Oliver waits outside in a getaway car with a police scanner. As soon as the coppers are rousted, Oliver lays on the horn, and Caroline races out with a bag full of cash before the authorities arrive. Quick and clean. Rinse and repeat.
The two carve a swath through the southeastern U.S., gradually attracting more scrutiny as they hone in on South Carolina, where Caroline’s mom (Kyra Sedgwick) settled after abandoning her family decades earlier. Caroline finally tracks her down at a seedy small-town bar; her mom is already three sheets to the wind, but happy to accept a couple of screwdrivers from her daughter. It’s far from a heartwarming reunion. Afterwards, a shaken Caroline tells Oliver that she’s ready to cut all ties and leave the country… and Oliver insists that to do that, they’ll need to hit a bigger bank. And so they push all their chips to the table one last time.
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Besides Bonnie & Clyde, there are also echoes of Terrence Malick’s classic Badlands in Carolina Caroline. A young, impressionable woman, trapped in small-town America, is looking for an escape… and not caring too much about the integrity of her Prince Charming. The bus is leaving the station, and if she doesn’t hop on this one, there might not be another.
Caroline’s dad seems like an affable sort; his daughter feels remorseful enough about flying the coop that she periodically checks in with him between heists. But Caroline pines more for the parent who didn’t want to stick around. Sedgwick’s turn as her mom takes up only 10 minutes of screen time and is a brutally powerful performance, with her mood quickly shifting from cordial to caustic when she realizes that the stranger buying her drinks is actually her daughter. Is that guilt talking? Most likely.
What do Caroline and Oliver ultimately want, besides each other? These are two folks who don't seem to think that far ahead. It's implied that the money would provide a cushion for a “clean start” elsewhere (Canada was mentioned), but beyond that is anyone's guess. What percentage of career criminals turn over new leaves and settle down to normal lives? I doubt it’s high. Just ask The Sopranos’ Vito Spatafore, who attempts to leave the mob life, only to find that he can’t handle the banality of honest work.
The bigger question here is, under what circumstances do we as filmgoers root for criminals? Certainly, these are not victimless crimes… but a corporate bank is largely viewed as a faceless entity, whereas a mom-and-pop shop is not. The expression “it’s all fun and games until someone gets hurt” comes to mind. What if an innocent bystander gets shot during a heist? A police officer? Where do we draw the line as far as Moral Event Horizons? And does one get crossed in this film? Most would argue yes – and that the related shift in tone during the final act turns Carolina Caroline into a cautionary tale.
The time-old adage is that there is “no honor among thieves,” but interestingly enough, there is genuine love here between Caroline and Oliver — both Weaving and Gallner effectively sell a couple who are true to each other despite the fact that they have no qualms about swindling the rest of the world. It’s that touch of devotion that sets it apart from the traditional genre fare.