A guy, a girl, a gun — the classic setup for a bullet-riddled crime flick. In the 1950 "Gun Crazy," a series of bad decisions made by a firearms aficionado named Bart (John Dall) and his full-on gun-nut wife Laurie (eternal noir pinup Peggy Cummins) set them both on the road to perdition (the usual destination in these pictures). More hauntingly, in Terrence Malick's 1973 "Badlands," a spaced-out teen (Sissy Spacek) fell in with the world's worst boyfriend (Martin Sheen) for a murderous crime spree. And then, of course, there was Arthur Penn's 1967 "Bonnie and Clyde," the apogee of the young-love-on-the-lam film genre, which like "Badlands" is drawn from real life.
"Carolina Caroline," a new movie by director Adam Rehmeier, has no such historical grounding. But in its depiction of two young lovers on the run with larceny in their hearts and weaponry near at hand, Rehmeier's picture manages to recall "Bonnie and Clyde" without simply inhaling it whole. The movie has its own creative agenda, especially in the small-town Kentucky streets and barrooms and motel fronts that cinematographer Jean-Philippe Bernier shows us, and with the rich country tuneage on the soundtrack: Loretta Lynn, Don Gibson, Kitty Wells (also, uh, Bad Company and, um, Captain Beefheart).
But the picture gets over and makes itself felt in the glowing romantic chemistry of its two stars, Samara Weaving and Kyle Gallner. Weaving, who already radiated comic star power in the recent "Over Your Dead Body," plays Caroline, a convenience-store shelf-stocker and mopper-upper who'd really rather be doing something else with her life. Gallner, bearing a doe-eyed gaze and unobjectionable mustache, plays Oliver, who walks into Caroline's little shop one day looking like the answer to her vague dreams. He's an amiable drifter exuding waves of top-shelf charm, and when he steps up to the store's counter to pay for a purchase, Caroline takes an immediate interest as he runs a cash-shuffling con at the register, gently fleecing her boss of a fistful of bucks.
Caroline quickly envisions a career in con-artistry herself — maybe even a full-fledged criminal life path — and immediately pins her desires on this guy. (We can feel he's fated to fall in a cozy barroom scene when she reaches up to brush back a strand of blonde hair from her cheek over a glass of good whiskey — a small gesture of straight-to-the-heart seduction.)
Caroline does have one long-embedded determination — to travel to South Carolina to locate the mother who abandoned her as a kid. (This turns out to be Kyra Sedgwick, scarier than I've ever seen her, as a twisted maternal Medusa no child would ever wish to come home to.)
The movie has as much action as it needs, but director Rehmeier's chief gift is his rare touch with actors: Along with Weaving and Gallner, he draws a performance of complex, understated melancholy from Jon Gries, playing Caroline's deserted dad.
The movie is a small and unassuming gem, with a script, by Tom Dean, that's well stocked with shapely lines.
"Whatta you do if you get caught?" Caroline asks Oliver, the itinerant outlaw.
"I don't get caught," he says.
"What if I caught you?" she says.
"Why?"
"There's somethin' about ya," she says.
Yes, there is.
Photos courtesy of Magnolia Pictures
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