Carolina Caroline, Short Takes on other cinematic topics

“Running on Empty”

(Blog posting title taken from a Jackson Browne song

on his 1977 album named for that tune)

Reviews and Comments by Ken Burke

I invite you to join me on a regular basis to see how my responses to current cinematic offerings compare to the critical establishment, which I’ll refer to as either the CCAL (Collective Critics at Large) if they’re supportive or the OCCU (Often Cranky Critics Universe) when they go negative.  However, due to COVID concerns I’m mostly addressing streaming options with limited visits to theaters, where I don’t think I’ve missed much anyway, but better options are on the horizon.  (Note: Anything in bold blue below [or near purple] is a link to something in the above title or the review.)

My reviews’ premise: “You can’t please everyone, so you got to please yourself.”

(from "Garden Party" by Rick Nelson and the Stone Canyon Band, 1972 album of the song’s name)

However, if you’d like to know more about rationale of my ratings visit this explanatory site.

                Carolina Caroline (Adam Carter Rehmeier)

                                        rated R    107 min.

Here’s the trailer:

        (Use the full screen button in the image’s lower right to enlarge its size; 

        activate the same button or use “esc” keyboard key to return to normal.)

If you can abide plot spoilers read on, but this blog’s intended for those who’ve seen the film or want to save some $ (as well as recognizing those readers like me who just aren’t that tech-savvy).  To help any of you who want to learn more details yet avoid these all-important plot-reveals I’ll identify any give-away sentences/sentence-clusters with colors plus arrows: 

⇒The first and last words will be noted with arrows and red.⇐ OK, now continue on if you prefer.

(Yeah, I stole this photo from some other site; blame it on bad influence from Oliver and Caroline.)

 

WHAT HAPPENS: (Sorry, but this has been another one of those very-busy-with-other-things-than-blogging weeks for me so my comments here will be shorter than I hoped to do, especially about a film I enjoyed so much; however, you can get a few more plot details at this site.)  Caroline Daniels (Samara Weaving) is a born-and-raised young woman somewhere in rural Texas (I know plenty of places there like the one depicted on screen) working at her father’s (Jon Gries) gas station/convenience shop, dreaming about traveling far away (Dad Hank did a bit of that too, saying he’d go to Ecuador, though he never did), including to South Carolina to find Mom, who abandoned Caroline when she was a baby.  One day a grifter, Oliver (Kyle Gallner), drops in, pulls some kind of a con on Dad that I couldn't fully follow (“Say, why don’t I give you another dollar, then you give me a twenty?”), so Caroline tracks him to a local bar that night, they quickly connect, soon she’s on the road with him pulling the cash con for increasingly higher stakes; then, wearing a wig and sunglasses she starts robbing small banks while he drives the getaway car.  Caroline eventually finds Mom (Kyra Sedgwick), a caustic alcoholic, which encourages Caroline to move up to bigger banks so she and Oliver can afford to leave the country.  After one job a cop pulls them over on a country road, realizes they’re in a stolen car, but Oliver kills him before he can call for help, though it eventually results in their photos all over local newspapers and TV news, ⇒leading them to a crowded roadhouse where more cops are on the way so Oliver fires his gun to create chaos as Caroline runs out with the rest of the crowd, the police kill Oliver in a shootout.  Caroline still has several hundred in the car trunk so our story ends with her having one last phone call with Dad, buying a plane ticket to Ecuador, then pulling another (high stakes) cash con with the ticket agent.⇐

SO WHAT? Unless you’re totally unaware of some true small-time hoods on the run in celebrated classic cinema (all true 5 stars-triumphs in my opinion) you can’t help watching Carolina Caroline without thinking about Bonnie and Clyde (Arthur Penn, 1967), Badlands (Terrence Malick, 1973), and even a touch of Thelma & Louise (Ridley Scott, 1991), with Carolina … not fully in the same league as these masterpieces yet intriguingly-watchable, enjoyable in its own right.  Weaving is especially effective in her more-flamboyant role, although cool, calm, collected (most of the time) Gallner makes a perfect balance with her as she grows in her criminal abilities, providing some new challenges to his assumed control of their situations.  There’s even occasional humor in a few of the scenes here (such as when Caroline’s rushing out of the bank after pulling her first robbery but forgets to take the bag of cash) reminding me of some similar moments of relief in Bonnie and Clyde.  I’ve had quite a nice string of mostly 4-stars experiences so far this year (although it took me into Spring to finally get done with all the 2025 titles I still wanted to explore, finally able to focus on 2026 releases), with Carolina Caroline fitting in nicely with other successes I’ve been fortunate enough to encounter this year (I hope there’ll be many more to come as the months keep rolling on).

BOTTOM LINE FINAL COMMENTS: Carolina Caroline made its domestic (U.S.-Canada) theatrical debut June 5, 2026, grossed $269.1 thousand (worldwide $392 thousand), now it's on streaming renting for $9.99 on Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV (I ended up renting from both; don't ask!).  The CCAL’s encourages your viewership as the Rotten Tomatoes positive reviews are 90% while the usually-less-enthusiastic Metacritic average score comes in at 75%.  I also actively support it as does Sheila O'Malley of RogerEbert.com: “Rehmeier, though, cares about individuality, and he has a sense of humor. He doesn’t force chemistry, but he leaves lots of space for it. Chemistry isn’t about people being naked in bed. Chemistry is about how people listen to each other talk. Chemistry is about what we say in vulnerable moments and how our vulnerability is handled in response. Chemistry is finding each other funny or adorable. When Caroline and Oliver kiss, it’s not just hot or sexy. You can feel their relief. [...] they are not alone in this weird, sad world.”

           

 As you might expect, though, with a dissenting voice we have Movie Nation's Roger Moore:  “But this narrative is so worn and this variation on it so watered-down from the decades of genre pictures that preceded it that the filmmakers and actors have to convince us that ‘60 second' robberies are casually planned, practiced and carried out. [¶] ‘It’s easy, right?’ No, it isn’t. [¶]  And setting your movie in the pre-CCTV surveillance state/phone booth/no cell phones seen/stealable-with-a-screwdriver cars era doesn’t make it more plausible. Not in the least.”  Such rejections notwithstanding, I liked it a lot, but need to move on so I’ll try to make up for my shortness this week with 2 offerings of concluding Musical Metaphors, the first referring somewhat to Caroline’s parent-seeking with James Taylor’s "Carolina in My Mind" (1968 James Taylor album), the second more from her father’s perspective, "Caroline, No" (Brian Wilson, 1966 Beach Boys Pet Sounds album). 

            

SHORT TAKES

          

Related Links Which You Might Find Interesting:

 

We encourage you to visit the Summary of Two Guys Reviews for our past posts* (scroll to the bottom of this Summary page to see additional info about your wacky critic, Ken Burke, along with contact info and a great retrospective song list).  Overall notations for this blog—including Internet formatting craziness beyond our control—may be found at our Two Guys in the Dark homepage.  If you’d like to Like us on Facebook (yes?) please visit our Facebook page.  We appreciate your support whenever and however you can offer it unto us!  Please also note that to Post a Comment below about our reviews you need to have either a Google account (which you can easily get at https://accounts.google.com/NewAccount if you need to sign up) or other sign-in identification from the pull-down menu below before you preview or post.  You can also leave comments at our Facebook page, although you may have to somehow register with us there in order to comment (FB procedures: frequently perplexing mysteries for us aged farts).

 

*Please ignore previous warnings about a “dead link” to our Summary page because the problem’s been manually fixed so that all postings since July 11, 2013 now have the proper functioning link.

If you’d rather contact Ken directly rather than leaving a comment here at the blog please 

use my email address of kenburke409@gmail.com—type it directly if the link doesn’t work.

          

OUR POSTINGS PROBABLY LOOK BEST ON THE MOST CURRENT VERSIONS OF MAC OS AND THE SAFARI WEB BROWSER (although Google Chrome usually is decent also); OTHERWISE, BE FOREWARNED THE LAYOUT MAY SEEM MESSY AT TIMES.

         

Finally, for the data-oriented among you, Google stats say over the past month the total unique hits at this site were 103,858.  (As always, we thank all of you for your ongoing support with hopes you’ll continue to be regular readers.)  Below is a snapshot of where those responses have come from within the previous week (appreciation for the unspecified “Others” also visiting Two Guys’ site):

Voicemails for Isabelle plus Short Takes on some other cinematic topics

Sorry, Wrong Number … Or, Maybe Not

Reviews and Comments by Ken Burke

I invite you to join me on a regular basis to see how my responses to current cinematic offerings compare to the critical establishment, which I’ll refer to as either the CCAL (Collective Critics at Large) if they’re supportive or the OCCU (Often Cranky Critics Universe) when they go negative.  However, due to COVID concerns I’m mostly addressing streaming options with limited visits to theaters, where I don’t think I’ve missed much anyway, but better options are on the horizon.  (Note: Anything in bold blue below [or near purple] is a link to something in the above title or the review.)

My reviews’ premise: “You can’t please everyone, so you got to please yourself.”

(from "Garden Party" by Rick Nelson and the Stone Canyon Band, 1972 album of the song’s name)

However, if you’d like to know more about rationale of my ratings visit this explanatory site.

                Voicemails for Isabelle (Leah McKendrick)

                                    rated PG-13    119 min.

Here’s the trailer:

        (Use the full screen button in the image’s lower right to enlarge its size; 

        activate the same button or use “esc” keyboard key to return to normal.)

 

If you can abide plot spoilers read on, but this blog’s intended for those who’ve seen the film or want to save some $ (as well as recognizing those readers like me who just aren’t that tech-savvy).  To help any of you who want to learn more details yet avoid these all-important plot-reveals I’ll identify any give-away sentences/sentence-clusters with colors plus arrows: 

⇒The first and last words will be noted with arrows and red.⇐ OK, now continue on if you prefer.

WHAT HAPPENS: My time’s been a bit booked this week, so I’ll be concise with my plot recap, knowing you can find more details at this site.  Jill Shaw (Zoey Deutch) and her younger sister (always battling some illness so she somewhat lived vicariously through Jill’s actions), Isabelle (Ciara Bravo), grew up in Austin, TX; when Jill reached young adulthood she hoped to fulfill her dream of becoming a baker by moving to San Francisco to apprentice with demanding chef Bastien (Nick Offerman), who delights in browbeating his subordinates.  Trying to focus on her intended profession, Jill has no social life, including a nowhere date with coworker Arthur (Lukas Gage) who then becomes her enemy.  Everything gets worse when Isabelle dies, although Jill continues her previous practice of phone calls with her sister by leaving voice messages which helps keep Izzy alive in Jill’s mind; however, somehow the number’s been reassigned to Austin real estate agent Wes (Nick Robinson) who becomes fascinated with Jill, wants to meet her, gets the chance when a work assignment takes him to San Francisco where he knows that at a certain day and time she’ll be sitting on a bench overlooking the Golden Gate Bridge so he can “accidently” meet Jill, chat her up.  

 

 She resists a relationship yet falls in love with him anyway even as he hesitates to tell her about the voicemails.  Wes invites Jill to come to Austin for the wedding of his friends Breeda (McKendrick) and Andy (Harry Shum Jr.).  While there she wears his jacket to keep warm (although for Austin at night in a tent implies a different season than what we see), tries to call Isabelle but Wes’ phone rings in his coat pocket so she realizes the truth, storms off.  Back in SF there’s a baking competition which Jill should have won, yet Bastien praises Arthur’s mess so Jill again storms off, then gets Isabelle’s college fund from her parents (Gil Bellows, Tanis Dolman), uses the money to start a dessert taco truck which becomes a success.  ⇒Wes leaves Jill a message on New Year’s Eve he’s restored Isabelle’s phone number to her, paid for it for a year, invites her to meet him at their favorite taco restaurant, which she does as she’s in Austin for the holiday.  Later, he’s in SF with her as they decide to move in together, with Jill leaving one last message about this for her long-gone sister.⇐

 SO WHAT? Essentially, this is a mostly-predictable romantic comedy with some heartfelt drama concerning Jill’s grief about her beloved sister so there’s nothing truly all that impactful about it compared to more-heavyweight fare I’ve attended to in recent weeks.  (Of my most recent 13 reviews, including this one, only 2 others—Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan: Ghost War [Andrew Bernstein] and Office Romance [Ol Parker]—have fallen below my prized 4 stars rating, so it’s been an almost-marvelous run since June 10.  Will I ever find something  this year to get me into the hallowed grounds of 4½ or 5 stars?  Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey probably has the next best chance if my local IMAX theater ever gets to a point where all the seats aren’t sold out, even for the 11pm showings, so we’ll see what comes in the next couple of weeks.)  In addition to recently bestowing those prized 4 stars lately I’ve also sometimes been noting connections (however tenuous) between my life and what’s happening in these movie plots; that happens again with Voicemails … in that like Jill I spent a good number of years in Austin before finally ending up after some other moves in the San Francisco Bay Area (not the city itself but several others in the region), although I’ve never had any connections with trying to be a baker (the closest I’ve come is buttering an English muffin) or real estate (except for buying a condo [thanks to Nina] which now is harder to insure in CA [Liberty Mutual’s slogan should change to “Only pay for what they might let you buy.”])  

 

 Voicemails … has its own connections, most notably in plot allusions to Sleepless in Seattle (Nora Ephron, 1993; starring Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan, both of whom are referenced in … Isabelle) and, especially in my opinion, When Harry Met Sally (Rob Reiner, 1989, written by Ephron; Ryan again, with Billy Crystal) given the New Year’s Eve element (also regarding that one, I’ve always felt it borrowed too much in tone from Woody Allen’s work back then).  Well, borrowings aside I can’t say I found much of my life in the Austin scenes, but then I’ve been gone from there for so long I couldn’t even recognize the brief downtown shots with all those skyscrapers I know nothing about; at least San Francisco shots often included the Golden Gate bridge and a more recognizable downtown, but otherwise this could have taken place anywhere.  The story’s very familiar as well with spontaneous connection, breakup, and aftermath, but the cast, especially Deutch, is a pleasure to watch, with the whole thing a welcome relief from the Trump-inspired projectile diarrhea I see on the nightly news.

BOTTOM LINE FINAL COMMENTS: Voicemails for Isabelle began streaming on Netflix ($8.99 for a month if you’re not a subscriber, want to explore it) on June 19, 2026, with the CCAL generally in support: Rotten Tomatoes positive reviews are 88%, the Metacritic average score is (notably lower as usual) at 62%.  Among the many who liked it even more supportive than me is Liz Declan of Screen Rant (MC 80): "It would have been all too easy for the romcom to just use Isabelle's death to propel a 'real' plot about Jill's romance with Wes forward. Instead, the movie is really a story about sisters, grief, and loss that incorporates love and romance as part of Jill's healing journey. She even makes that point directly (albeit a bit too directly; it's a little on the nose), telling Wes, 'I don't need a man. What I need is my little sister back.' [...] Ultimately, though, what truly makes Voicemails for Isabelle stand out is that it isn't just another romcom that's going to get some views and be forgotten; this movie offers a genuinely meaningful story, in which audiences get to see Jill heal after this brutal loss—and that's what it's really about."  In contrast, among those not so impressed we have Guy Lodge of Variety (MC 50) who says: “Is ‘Voicemails’ the least romantic word ever to appear in the title of a romantic comedy? It’s up there, surely. But consider it a suitable warning, since ‘Voicemails for Isabelle’ isn’t terribly romantic either, though it puts much bright-eyed effort into proving otherwise. Writer-director Leah McKendrick’s film challenges itself early, bringing its attractively matched leads together with a meet that couldn’t be less cute […] Like ‘Sleepless in Seattle’ with considerably more boundary violations, it’s a pretty creepy starting point for a tale intended to end on a blissful, wistful sigh. For all its otherwise precision-engineered sweetness, ‘Voicemails for Isabelle’ doesn’t find its way.”  I land below-ish these two clear positions.

 

 As always, you choose if this suits your interests as, despite some serious aspects, it’s still basically a romcom.  I’ll finish off with my usual Musical Metaphor, this time the Rolling Stones’ "Connection" (1967 Between the Buttons album), sometimes sung in concert by Mick Jagger but also by co-writer Keith Richards (as in this clip from Martin Scorsese’s documentary, Shine a Light [2008], where you get some additional commentary from Keith and bandmate Ron Wood [if you can understand much of what they're saying]) when Mick’s taking a break from his frantic stage persona.  As with Jill and Wes (him especially), the goal in these lyrics is “to get back to you” even though “Everything is going in the wrong direction.”  Directions from Austin to San Francisco can get confused given the distance involved, but maybe GPS helps (when it doesn't dump you in the water).

           

SHORT TAKES

             

Related Links Which You Might Find Interesting:

 

The Boston Globe’s Odie Henderson’s Top 10 of 2026 so far (I’ve seen 3 of them, agree on those).

 

We encourage you to visit the Summary of Two Guys Reviews for our past posts* (scroll to the bottom of this Summary page to see additional info about your wacky critic, Ken Burke, along with contact info and a great retrospective song list).  Overall notations for this blog—including Internet formatting craziness beyond our control—may be found at our Two Guys in the Dark homepage.  If you’d like to Like us on Facebook (yes?) please visit our Facebook page.  We appreciate your support whenever and however you can offer it unto us!  Please also note that to Post a Comment below about our reviews you need to have either a Google account (which you can easily get at https://accounts.google.com/NewAccount if you need to sign up) or other sign-in identification from the pull-down menu below before you preview or post.  You can also leave comments at our Facebook page, although you may have to somehow register with us there in order to comment (FB procedures: frequently perplexing mysteries for us aged farts).

 

*Please ignore previous warnings about a “dead link” to our Summary page because the problem’s been manually fixed so that all postings since July 11, 2013 now have the proper functioning link.

 

If you’d rather contact Ken directly rather than leaving a comment here at the blog please 

use my email address of kenburke409@gmail.com—type it directly if the link doesn’t work.

          

OUR POSTINGS PROBABLY LOOK BEST ON THE MOST CURRENT VERSIONS OF MAC OS AND THE SAFARI WEB BROWSER (although Google Chrome usually is decent also); OTHERWISE, BE FOREWARNED THE LAYOUT MAY SEEM MESSY AT TIMES.

               

Finally, for the data-oriented among you, Google stats say over the past month the total unique hits at this site were 103,858.  (As always, we thank all of you for your ongoing support with hopes you’ll continue to be regular readers.)  Below is a snapshot of where those responses have come from within the previous week (appreciation for the unspecified “Others” also visiting Two Guys’ site):