Talking Tribeca: Caroline and Jackie

I’ve had the pleasure this year of screening some selections from this year’s Tribeca Film Festival, which takes place April 18th-29th.

Caroline and Jackie

Directed by Adam Christian Clark
Festival Screenings

Any movie with names and nothing else in the title asserts a meaning or importance of said characters. In this case, Caroline and Jackie are sisters who have an extraordinarily complicated relationship. The seductive Caroline (Marguerite Moreau) arrives in town to celebrate her birthday with her sister Jackie (Bitsie Tulloch), and the evening quickly turns sour when Caroline and Jackie’s boyfriend begin an intervention for Jackie’s alleged eating disorder. Events take continually unexpected turns as a distraught Jackie wanders off, and her friends begin to look for her. The film has a marvelously dreamlike film, yet all of its action feels incredibly real. As usual, Moreau, from “Life as We Know It,” “Mad Men,” and “Douchebag,” has an incredibly alluring, mesmerizing part, and she handles it magnificently. Yet the breakout star of the film, currently seen on “Grimm,” along with the actor who here plays her boyfriend, is Tulloch, who crafts Jackie as a methodical, buttoned-up person yearning to be freer and more relaxed. A capable ensemble works with a well-constructed script, and the film, in all its stages, remains consistently intriguing and immensely watchable.

See it or skip it? See it. It’s not the happiest of films, but it’s extremely interesting.