Carolina (2003)

This review is sponsored by

BUY IT

General		Extras
Category	Romantic Comedy	Main Menu Animation
Rating
Year Of Production	2003
Running Time	92:42
RSDL / Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Ads Then Menu
Region Coding	4	Directed By	Marleen Gorris
Studio Distributor	Sony Pictures Home Entertain	Starring	Julia Stiles Shirley MacLaine Alessandro Nivola Randy Quaid Edward Atterton Azura Skye Mika Boorem Jennifer Coolidge Alan Thicke John Capodice Lisa Sheridan Ambyr Childers Daveigh Chase
Case	Amaray-Opaque
RPI	$39.95	Music	Steve Bartek

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	Pan & Scan	English Dolby Digital 2.0 (224Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	None
16x9 Enhancement	No
Video Format	576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio	1.85:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	None	Smoking	No
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	Yes, Characters established within credits.

"For God's sake, Carolina.
Live a little!"

Some movies come and go so quickly that it is very easy to miss one that is really worth catching. One such is Carolina, which had a European theatrical release in 2003 but in the US did not rate cinema exposure. I suspect that the film met the same straight-to-video fate here. Carolina is not a great movie but, sandwiched between an appalling opening sequence and a mawkish final ten minutes, there is an hour or so of enjoyable enough diversion, starring two actresses, of widely disparate ages, who are amongst the best.

The story opens with two pre-teen sisters being raised by their grandmother, Millicent (Millie) Mirabeau (Shirley MacLaine). The two girls, Carolina and Georgia, are brawling, and as a solution Grandma puts them out in the alley armed with two butcher's knives, telling them : "Now, kill each other." This is followed by an unfunny parody of a spaghetti western "shootout". This conflict resolved, Grandma's son, Ted (Randy Quaid) arrives on the scene - literally -with a new sibling for the two girls, a baby named Maine. It seems the girls are named after states, depending on where the mothers - yes, plural - were at the time of birth. Towards the end of the film Georgia has a son, whom she names California! Perhaps one day this young lad and Auntie Carolina could get together and do a counterpoint duet of two old Al Jolson numbers.

In a very smart dissolve from the young Carolina's face into that of Julia Stiles, we see the attractive young woman being interviewed for a position working on the TV show "The Perfect Date", a show which finds the lovelorn a dating partner. One incongruous contestant is Heath Pierson (Edward Atterton). Why would a handsome, wealthy Brit with an apartment in Paris be a TV contestant on a dating show? During the live telecast Carolina has a phone call from sister Georgia telling her that she is pregnant. The interruption leads to a major on air boo-boo, which incenses compere Chuck McBride (Alan Thicke), and Carolina is fired. Consolation is found in the company of neighbour and platonic best-friend, Albert Morris (Alessandro Nivola). Albert is a modestly successful writer, penning entries in a series of soft-cover romances, the kind that have heaving breasts and pulsating pecs on their seductive covers. Albert works under the nom de plume "Daphne St Clair", paying actresses to be her/him at book signings - early in the film we see "Daphne" impersonated by an unbilled Barbara Eden - in real life the aunt of writer Katherine Fugate. Carolina, with a list of unbreakable "Carolina rules", has a personal life that never gets beyond the first date. Things start looking up when Heath reappears with amorous intent, an event which leads Carolina to break some key rules, and to Albert aroused to more than platonic interest in his best friend. There are a few family events - Christmas, Thanksgiving and Carolina's birthday - attended by either, or both, Heath and Albert, where we see the full family in action, including Aunt Marilyn (Jennifer Coolidge), a madam with a small stable of working ladies. There are embarrassing moments galore and throughout advice is dished out by Grandma Shirley: "Remember -God said celebrate, not celibate!".

The screenplay by Katherine Fugate, and as directed by Dutch film-maker Marleen Goriss in her first US feature, is little more than a series of cutesy incidents. Evidently based on the personal youthful experiences of the writer, the work depends more on mere quirks of character than any real plot or character development. Everyone seems to have his or her particular oddity, and that's it. Maine, who also has a penchant for speaking with a British accent, believes that she has the ability to predict lottery numbers, Georgia's pregnancy just about sums her up, Quaid is a bumbling accident, Albert has his alter ego and Aunt Marilyn has her profession. Instead of any degree of character development we are presented with broad stereotypes, reaching its most blatant with the appearance of "The Cleaning Queens". This spandex clad gay duo is a present from Albert, "given" to save Carolina having to clean up after the celebrations. It is all very one dimensional and superficial, buoyed by the performances of MacLaine and Stiles. In a role originally intended for Kathy Bates, Shirley MacLaine is more controlled than in some of her more recent projects. Her initial entrance rings alarms - a close-up of "funny" shoes getting out of a car, garish costume and make-up - but then, surprisingly, the performance is more restrained. Still a stimulating screen presence, Miss Maclaine remains leggily dynamic, managing to be simultaneously canny and ingenuous. Also effective is Julia Stiles, a reliable young actress who has demonstrated the ability to portray a wide range of emotions and characterisations. Remember how frightening she was two years earlier in The Business of Strangers with Stockard Channing? This is a lighter offering from her, but she is an accomplished young actress, deserving of her current success in the Bourne movies. Of the two young men, Edward Atterton is handsome and does the debonair Brit very nicely, while Alessandro Nivola injects much charm into Albert. This excellent actor, so good as John Cusack's brother in the recent Grace Is Gone, does not have much to work with here, but he manages to breathe some reality into his very sketchy role.

The minor characters are all pleasantly played, with good work from Azura Skye (is she related to the lovely Iona?) as Georgia and Mika Boorem as Maine. Jennifer Coolidge does what you would expect with Aunt Marilyn, as does Randy Quaid as the girls' mainly absent father, and Jill the Dog is a plus. I said this movie is "cute".

The technical aspects of the video presentation of Carolina will be discussed below, but there is an irony I'd like to touch on here. This film's director and writer are obviously active in their commitment to present women's issues on the screen, a screen that far too frequently concentrates on the obsessions of fourteen-year-old males. Indeed, their next collaboration is Heaven and Earth, which deals with the story of the first woman doctor who, in order to practice, was forced to masquerade as a man. How ironic, then, that Carolina has been technically "dumbed down" to a 4x3 transfer. One can only assume that the intended target audience - younger females? - were deemed incapable of making any needed adjustment to their equipment in order to play a 16x9 transfer. The solution? Give 'em a 4x3 with the sides lopped off! Much like the recent "bad-old-days" of Disney looking towards their target audience of children.

Carolina is let down by its screenplay, with truly lamentable opening and closing sequences. Even the better central section has major problems in the writing. An embarrassing situation is not automatically "funny", but that seems to be the premise here. Were it not for the talented participation of the two major actresses - they may even stir you to a tear or two - and the attractive performance by Nivola, this would be difficult to take. However, with these three plusses Carolina is worth devoting ninety minutes of your time.

Video

The video transfer is reasonable, without any great faults or virtues.

The transfer is presented non 16x9 enhanced in an aspect ratio of 1.33:1, the theatrical release having been 1.78:1.
The credits are presented in 4x3 matted widescreen format, switching to full screen at their conclusion.

The transfer is clean and clear clear, but it is not super sharp, with a softness to many scenes.
There are a few murky passages, but generally the colour is bright and attractive. At times this may be a little extreme, some scenes and the bright primary colours reminiscent of a Disney movie.

Shadow detail is neither a plus nor a minus. Most scenes are bright and sunny.
There is a moderate amount of grain.
There is no low level noise.

Film-to-video artefacts were not a problem.

There are no subtitles.

This is a single layer disc.

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

There is one audio track, English Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround Encoded, at 224 Kbps.
Despite the limitations of the audio stream, this disc gives a very pleasing aural experience.
The surround channels are frequently filled with ambient sounds, such as birds twittering and traffic.
The music throughout the film is very attractive, particularly in one scene between Stiles and Nivola (59:00) .
In the Christmas sequence the seasonal music makes excellent use of the surround encoding (46:45).
All of the music is reproduced dynamically and attractively.
The dialogue was always clear and easy to understand, and there was no problem with sync.
There is no evidence of crackle, pop or drop-out.

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

The only "extra" on each disc is the menu.

Menu

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall