Review: Carolina


Despite being named after a State (like her siblings), the title character (Julia Stiles) has turned out rather normal, all things considered. Her grandmother (Shirley MacLaine) is somewhat eccentric but has been good enough to raise all the kids of her wholly irresponsible, womanising drunk son (Randy Quaid, natch). Stiles, meanwhile, is having problems at work (she works for a TV dating game show hosted by seriously weird Alan Thicke), when she meets a Hugh Grant-ish type who was one of the show’s clients, until he realised he’d much rather date Stiles. This upsets Stiles’ best pal and neighbour Alessandro Nivola (quite charming). Nivola, a ghost writer for famed romance novelist Barbara Eden (yes, Barbara Eden playing a queen bitch!) has pined for Stiles a helluva long time now, and is jealous of the new competition. This all sounds totally original, doesn’t it? Not! Mika Boreem is irritating as Stiles’ horse-riding, phony-accent sporting younger sister Maine (yes, Maine. Oh, how funny!…whatever). Azura Skye plays the pregnant other sister Georgia. Jennifer Coolidge is well-cast as the slutty Aunt.

 

A good cast doesn’t even come close to saving this well-meaning but totally run-of-the-mill Marleen Gorris romantic-comedy/drama from 2003. The romantic angle is totally predictable, and the family scenes seem like leftovers from “National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation”. Quaid doesn’t exactly do his Cousin Eddie schtick here, but it is kind of like a straight version of the role he amusingly played in “ID4”. He’s fine as always, but the character is sorely underdeveloped (Coolidge, meanwhile, might as well have not turned up, well-cast as she is, she’s given nothing to do). In fact, the entire cast is good here (“Growing Pains” dad Alan Thicke provides some laughs as perhaps the cheesiest game show host of all-time. He’s dressed like Eric Idle in the “Galaxy Song” segment of “Meaning of Life”), though Boreem’s faux-British character is pretty grating.

 

It’s as if director Gorris (“Antonia’s Line”) and screenwriter Katherine Fugate expected the wonderfully talented cast to make more of the story and characters than is actually on paper. But when you’re starting with bugger-all, even the greatest cast ever assembled wouldn’t be able to make something out of nothing.


Rating: C

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