As a teenager, I found solace in melancholy country music. After a rough day of feeling ostracized and confused, I could at least look forward to turning on my radio and fiddling the dial to 96.3 KSCS. Artists like Cross Canadian Ragweed, Dierks Bentley, and Gary Allan made me feel less alone in my adolescent ennui, if only for a few minutes. Director Adam Carter Rehmeier’s Carolina Caroline registers as a cinematic manifestation of those tunes I once clung to. The film’s aching milieu, like the tunes “Best I Ever Had” or “Trying to Stop Your Leaving,” thrives on the bittersweet realization that even the best things crumble to dust.

Caroline (Samara Weaving) is just an ordinary lady working in a Texas filling station. That is, until Oliver (Kyle Gallner) strolls into her life. After catching him pulling a fast one, she realizes she’s in the presence of a conman. A handsome conman. A handsome, single conman. That tantalizing allure proves irresistible to the Lone Star girl. Over the course of several dates, he lets her in, revealing what fuels his schemes.

In these earliest scenes, William Thomas Dean IV’s script proves a perfect match for Rehmeier. As in his directorial debut, Dinner in America, the filmmaker commits to realizing the couple’s messy, morally complex romance. Oliver and Caroline’s fervor for one another unfolds organically and believably, fueled by Weaving and Gallner’s strong chemistry. The director clearly loves capturing characters talk and gradually falling in love. That passion proves infectious as the film resists the temptation to barrel through intimate scenes to reach gun-heavy segments.

Sequences of hand-holding in cars or slow dancing in BBQ joints give way to the duo hitting the road and working cons together. In short order, cons lead to bank robberies. Even as Caroline proves a champ at her new vocation and Oliver a skilled getaway driver, it’s clear this arrangement can’t last forever. Secrets and an ever-increasing scope of criminal activity push the duo towards being a 90s Bonnie and Clyde. And we all know how that ended.

Among the many feats in Dean IV’s writing is its tonal complexity. As Caroline and Oliver get to know each other, the script weaves a superb, straightforward romance. Paired with snappy editing, their criminal heyday radiates with entertaining Edgar Wright energy. Finally, a creeping melancholy lurches to the forefront. Each tonal shift avoids feeling disjointed and never undercuts the film’s earlier vibes. occurs without coming off as either disjointed or undercutting the earlier zippy material. Dean IV’s script instead realizes the increasing bittersweetness as simultaneously inevitable and appropriately gutting. Just because storm clouds inevitably produce thunder doesn’t make the rain any less devastating.

The two leads prove so engaging, whether smooching or stealing, one can’t help but get wrapped up in their turmoil. Caroline, especially, fascinates. Certain the wider world is passing her by, she lives with a gaping crater in her soul roughly the size of her absent mother. It’s little wonder that the twin thrills of romance and robbery become a balm for that void. Dean IV and Rehmeier don’t let those “solutions” go unchallenged, poignantly depicting their consequences. A great vessel for Weaving’s acting chops, the Ready or Not vet especially excels at allowing flickers of jagged interiority to bubble just under her carefully controlled exterior.

Gallner, reteaming with Rehmeier after their Dinner in America collaboration, is once again tremendous. Not only has he got backwoods bad boy swagger down pat, he also imbues Oliver with assuredness that never lapses into irritating. His confidence comes off as charming, not repellently smarmy. Gallner’s portrayal of a man oscillating between terrifying and quietly endearing is deeply impressive.

Visually, Carolina Caroline isn’t quite as exemplary as its lead performances and screenwriting. While the real-world backdrops look great, digitally capturing this period-piece crime story robs it of some of its tactility. Certain scenes would’ve benefited from more distinctive blocking and camera movements. Nonetheless, its imagery still enthralls during suspenseful sequences. With a firm command of the material, Rehmeier wrings all possible tension out of sequences like Oliver and Caroline getting stopped by a cop. Carolina Caroline excels in that set piece, part of a third-act descent into bleaker territory.

Watching these two try to cling to their clearly troubled relationship even as problems mount is riveting. Southern love curdling into turmoil evokes those aching songs of my adolescence, making for enthralling cinema.

Carolina Caroline is casing theatres in limited release now.

Carolina Caroline Trailer: