Carolina Caroline (Blu-ray Review)
Director
Adam Carter RehmeierRelease Date(s)
2026 (August 25, 2026)Studio(s)
Magnolia Pictures (Magnolia Entertainment)- Film/Program Grade: A-
- Video Grade: A-
- Audio Grade: A
- Extras Grade: F
Review
Director Adam Carter Rehmeier has been slowly on the rise, especially after the underground success of his 2020 film Dinner in America, which has become a beloved cult film after it died after not having theatrical distribution almost anywhere in the world, mostly due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Many have discovered it since and deemed it a real loss to the cinematic landscape, though in all honesty, similar circumstances were bound to happen in today’s theatrical climate. His excellent follow-up, this year’s Carolina Caroline, a Bonnie and Clyde-ish crime thriller that came and went, had the advantage of theatrical distribution, but few actually saw it that way and it hit Digital and streaming platforms almost as fast as it left theaters. It’s truly a shame since this is one of the best romantic road crime movies of its kind and it deserves a wider audience.
Caroline (Samara Weaving) is a small town girl working at a local filling station in Texas, dreaming of hitting the road to find her estranged mother (Kyra Sedgwick) in South Carolina, who abandoned her as an infant with her supportive father Hank (Jon Gries). One day she witnesses a man named Oliver (Kyle Gallner) pull a quick change scam on her boss at the cash register, and after confronting him about it, the two quickly fall in love and hit the road together. Oliver teaches her how to scam cashiers, and things begin to escalate when they decide to become bank robbers, making their way closer and closer to South Carolina.
While Kyle Gallner has become a favorite of many movie fans and female admirers, he’s yet to truly break through and become a household name, and that seems to be the way that he wants it. He gets to make quality films like Dinner in America and The Passenger without the need to appear in a Marvel or Star Wars product. That’s not to say that he never will or that he doesn’t have those aspirations at all, but for the time being, his slowly-growing and loyal fan base, many of whom will line up for any of his films, is what keeps him grounded. He’s a meticulous and hard-hitting actor. You can fall in love with him one minute and have be intimated or frightened of him the next. And in the work of Adam Carter Rehmeier, he often vacillates between the two.
On the other side of the equation is the equally lovely Samara Weaving, who is perhaps better well known that Gallner, but is nonetheless equally talented. Her performances in Ready or Not, Bad Girl, Over Your Dead Boy, and her one-off appearance in Bill & Ted Face the Music prove that she’s more than a so-called “nepo baby.” She’s got the chops as well as the looks, turning in intricate performances, including her work in Carolina Caroline. Her and Gallner light up the screen together with perfect chemistry and dynamic performances. It’s hard not to fall in love with them and want them to get away with everything, but as the film goes on, you begin to realize that things may not work out for them. Though the film is often compared to Bonnie and Clyde and Badlands, you actually admire and adore Caroline’s and Oliver’s relationship as they make their way down darker paths, which makes them feel more tragic, though not wholly unexpected.
As someone who grew up in Kentucky, I knew at once where I was at once the film was underway. Shot mostly in and around Louisville, it feels almost like a love letter visually to that part of the South. We don’t see big cities, but small towns and back roads, which is what I think of when I think back to my childhood in that part of the world. I needed no further proof than in a bar scene with a vending machine in the background containing several rows of Grippos Barb-B-Q flavored potato chips lining one of the shelves. If you’re from that part of the world, you know a local specialty when you see it. This is Kentucky, which also stands in for much of the South. The characters we meet in this world, including Kyra Sedgwick as Caroline’s mother, are so authentic that it’s like they grabbed folks off the street and stuck them in front of the camera. It’s all so accurate that it’s uncanny.
Carolina Caroline is first class filmmaking from an underappreciated director, who will likely continue to make quality work. The verisimilitude of the film’s setting and its characters, as well as its quality cinematography and performances, make it a must-see.
Cinematographer Jean-Philippe Bernier captured Carolina Caroline in the Redcode RAW (6K) codec using Red Komodo-X and Red V-Raptor [X] cameras and Canon 10x Cine-Servo and DZOFilm Pavo lenses. The results were finished as a 4K Digital Intermediate and framed theatrically at the aspect ratio of 2.39:1. Magnolia Entertainment debuts the film on Blu-ray, downscaled from the 4K DI, and encoded to a single-layered BD-25 disc. The lack of a 4K Ultra HD option is a shame as this is a film that’s all about its visuals. With a warm and colorful palette, dominated by greens and golds, but also creative lighting where casts of vivid blues, greens, and reds highlight our characters, it cries out for HDR. Most of the screen is taken up by the black matting above and below the frame, and without any additional content, a 106-minute film on a single layer is efficient but still effective in its own way. Bitrates sit in the 25 to 35Mbps range with a solid picture and no obvious encoding issues. Blacks are deep with good contrast and there no other image deficiencies to be found. It would look far better in UHD, but this will suffice for now.
Audio is included in English 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio with optional subtitles in English SDH. It’s a lovely surround experience that has plenty of engagement all around, using its sound space to envelope with the sounds of the open road, the bars, the motels, and the busy, or even non-busy, small town city streets. Dialogue is king, but there’s also a nice selection of music to compliment Chris Bear’s score, including the likes of Loretta Lynn, Lucinda Williams, Emmylou Harris, Bad Company, Sarah Shook & the Disarmers, and Kitty Wells, among others. It’s a very solid track.
There are sadly no extras. Instead there are ten minutes of trailers as an option on the main menu, which also open the disc. They include previews for Normal, Heel, The Carpenter’s Son, and Borderline (also featuring Samara Weaving), as well as a Charitybuzz promo.
It should be noted that Carolina Caroline is currently available on streaming and Digital in UHD, making the lack of a 4K release a real disappointment. Hopefully the film will garner enough of a following someday to warrant it since it actually looks better on streaming than it does on Blu-ray. That’s certainly no reason not to pick up the film on physical media, but there’s definitely massive room for improvement here. Either way, Carolina Caroline is highly recommended.
- Tim Salmons
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