User Reviews

This is "Caroline", an American live action short film in the English language that runs for a bit over 10 minutes and was written and directed by Logan George and Celine Held. The latter is also a prolific actress playing a crucial character in this little tale, but not the one the film is named after because Caroline is a girl sitting in a car during hot weather when her mother is away for a while and left her and her younger siblings there. The situation is witnessed by other people outside who come to help the children in the car. This is a little film about people making unlucky decisions, but also about chance and circumstance adding to these events and making things worse. I think it was an okay little film with some interesting tension, not a perfect film, for example on one or two occasions I felt Caroline was acting too much like a grown-up the way she was written, but it was nothing bad or deal-breaking when it comes to the movie's quality. Still I cannot deny that I am a bit surprised how well the reception for this film has been until now with all the awards recognition and also how it did not only make the Oscars shortlist, but is even considered a frontrunner for the win by some at this point. That good it is not in my opinion. Butt decide for yourself and go see it. I certainly give this little film a thumbs-up. It's a story right out of the life and feels very authentic.

The camera zeros in the salty sweat dripping down from the hot childrens faces after spending the day in and out of a hot Texas car. Throughout the film my mind went through a variety of emotions: confused, chaotic, stressed, and anxious. The single, stressed, mother of 3 is struggling to provide enough of a healthy lifestyle for her children. She runs around town frantically to the babysitters to find out she isn't home, then to the store because her son had to go to the bathroom, then ending at a job interview still with her 3 children. She obviously cares for her children, but it is clear she lays a lot of responsibility onto her 6 year old daughter Caroline. Which makes Caroline feel she has a lot of duties when it comes to her younger siblings, that she should not necessarily have because she is only 6 and is still a child. There are a lot of roadblocks that show up for the mother, for example, she has to leave her kids in the car while she goes to her interview, but she can't leave the car running because that uses a lot of gas which costs a lot of money, and when your a single mother of 3 kids, money like that is hard to come by. She proceeds to show Caroline how to turn on the car, but Caroline being 6 couldn't figure it out and started to overheat, she would tell her siblings about their favourite TV show to calm them down. While the kids are stuck in the sauna-like car, the camera never gives you a clear calm shot of all the children, it is full of tension and anxiety.

After watching the film and talking to others about it, most people thought that when the lady got into the car with the kids, that she was going to kidnap them. But in my mind, my first thought about it was she's going to get the keys and turn on the AC for them. Personally at first I didn't like how the director ended the film abruptly because I wanted to know what happened after Caroline bit the lady who was helping her moments before but was protecting her mother anyways, if the cops ever got involved, if the mother was going to lose her children, if she even got the job after that big fiasco in the parking lot. But as I watched it more it grew on me, in the way that the intention was to make the audience feel that cliffhanger and keep them hooked, give them that sense of wonder and suspense.

I found myself getting very anxious about what was going to happen next. Were the strangers about to help the children or were they kidnappers? Were the police going to show up? This was the most riveting twelve minutes I think I've ever seen. Very well done!

"Caroline" is a gripping and well-articulated piece that depicts the harsh reality of being forced to grow up at a young age. This film is centered around a mother and her three children on a hot summer day. The events that take place are shown through the perspective of the oldest daughter, Caroline. As the film starts, the mother seems very frantic, and the audience soon finds out that she has an important job interview to go to. The mother is unable to find anybody who can watch her three children, so she is forced to leave them in the car despite the heat. The fact that this mom chooses to leave her kids in the car in such weather conditions, shows the audience that she has no choice, she needs this job interview more than she wants it. It highlights the struggles that she may be facing in her personal life. Throughout the movie, focus is brought back on to Caroline's loose tooth occasionally. The mom leaves Caroline with the car keys in case it gets too hot, and they need to turn on the air conditioning.

As the film progresses Caroline tries her best to distract her little brother and sister, reinforcing this role she has of being the big sister, taking on responsibility she shouldn't have to at her age. Seeing three young children locked in a car in the scorching heat, would be an alarming sight for anybody. This is proven true when multiple concerned people later approach Caroline and call the police. A lady begins to speak to Caroline politely but when the mom returns, the same woman is very hostile towards her. Nobody present considered that there may be more to the story and this may not be a case of negligence but simply a mother who is just struggling and trying her best. More and more people gather around the car and surround the family, trying to prevent the mother from leaving and even going as far to tackle her to the ground to try and restrain her. This scene brings forth the idea that these people may not care about the well-being of the kids as much they're trying to appear to. To them, Caroline's mother is the villain in the scenario, they have their minds made up, failing to see that the mother is the only one who is trying to get her kids out of the situation and prevent them from seeing something happen. These strangers don't care about the children because if they did, they wouldn't make them watch such a scene, all they want is the mother to be taken away. Caroline seeing her mother in this situation, runs to help her and bites the woman on top of her mother, as a result her loose bloodied tooth falls out in her hand. The camera focuses on this shot for a while before abruptly ending the film, leaving the audience with an unfinished scene and mixed feelings.

The symbolism of the tooth is quite significant. In our childhood, baby teeth symbolize innocence and losing them is a sign of growing up. Caroline's tooth is loose throughout this film, until she sees this traumatic scene with her mother being tackled. Seeing such a sight, Caroline is forced to grow up, she loses her tooth in pursuit of helping her mother from being taken away from her. The tooth being lost at the end of the film symbolizes the innocence and childhood that Caroline lost that day, she was forced to grow up by being put in a position no child should be put in. The directors of this short film, Celine Held and Logan George, were inspired by multiple news stories to make this short film. All the actors have remarkably lived up to the film's theme with their impressively unforgettable performances. This short film evokes a strong emotional response from viewers by humanizing a situation that many mothers face and that society overlooks by making assumptions and sticking with them. People failing to recognize that not all is black and white and that how something looks isn't always how it is.

There is no other way to describe "Caroline" other than stressful. The entire time I was watching I was expecting disaster. The in-vehicle camera angles and eerie silence of the car keeps you on the edge of your seat and instils a tremendous amount of worry. Logan George and Celine Held achieved their clear intentions when creating this film by describing every mother's worst nightmare through thematic elements that would make a Buddhist monk lose his cool.

An aspect of this film that I found interesting was the fact that in the end, it is impossible to pick a side! There were serious mistakes made on both sides of the conflict, and the directors did a very good job at leaving the audience split and uneasy. There was also a great juxtaposition created between the car and the outside world. When the children are alone in the car, there is complete silence other than the chatter from the kids. Whenever the mother is on screen the scene gets more chaotic. This is illustrated perfectly through the barking of the dog and the sound of a stick hitting the chain link fence at the very start of the film. This background noise was designed to inspire a sense of stress in the audience and highlight the turbulent nature of a single mother wrangling her kids. As for symbolism in this piece, the clearest example is Caroline's tooth. The tooth falling out after she bit the lady in the parking lot represents a loss of innocence and a literal taste of the real world. The point of this powerful symbolism was to bring attention to how kids are brought into tough situations and exposed to the harshness of the world before they are ready.

One criticism I would have about this piece is how the people trying to help Caroline and company in the car were painted as villains. Because this film was primarily brought to us from the perspective of Caroline, I found myself feeling sorry for her even though she left her children in the world's most uncomfortable sauna for thirty minutes. This entire movie was gripping and stressful and although I enjoyed it the first time, I would not want to watch it again in fear of having a panic attack.

In scorching Texas, three kids are isolated in a car with the windows up causing the temperature to rise ever higher. The short film is focused around a young girl through the perspective of a passive observer as she tries to grasp her new role in this stressful situation. The combination of anxiety, fear, and indesion plague her as she tries to get a grasp on her reality. Coraline is an uneased reflection of our society to tell the tale of the Mob vs. The one. This immersing film brings the fear of indecision through the screen right to the viewer and reels you into a faint memory of a traumatic childhood.

Nominated for the Short Film Palme d'Or at the 2018 Cannes Film Festival and South by Southwest, co directed by Celine Held and Logan George, they took the inspiration for Caroline from local stories of tragic accidents. They took the tragic events of the torrid climate of their local area and wove them into a compelling story. Based on true events of three news stories where a single mother would have either a job interview or an exam, and all extra help fell through. All of these very real stories cause the film to have a real combination of fear and tact that cannot come from the imagination, which help accentuate the question of the relationship between mob mentality and irrational individual actions in any given situation.

Filmed in Houston Texas, USA, Caroline hooks in the reader through the fast paced rising tension of its carefully crafted cinematography. It's specific location brings familiarity of past experiences flooding in, entrenching you into the story, making each camera movement feel as if it's your own. In spite of the rising tension of the situation, the film uses no score or extra sounds, the use of only dialogue never feels too underplayed and the power and emotion of the film is always there. The pacing of the film allows the audience to grasp the situation fully but also has the feeling of rushed passages of time to allow for the feeling of anxiety to set in. Once the situation starts to begin rolling, the audience is relied on by the effective acting and emotion of the characters. Through the slight distance between the audience and the main character we can fully grasp her situation and how her childhood is slowly taken from her and is instead replaced with the role of the mother to her siblings. Fully making the whole film feel more genuine and rooted into reality.

With it being a less recent film it has become harder to fully understand the issue it proposes, especially to younger audiences. Filmed back in 2018, and was nominated for the Short Film Palme d'Or at the 2018 Cannes Film Festival as well as South by Southwest. Being Fully released in 2019, it was shortlisted for the Academy Award for Best Live Action Short Film at the 91st Academy Awards. Celine Held and Logan Goerge are currently working with their recent drama, Topside, which has been fully released.

Caroline follows a 6 year old girl's perspective as she and her siblings are left in a hot car in the blazing heat. The mother obviously is under a lot of pressure, assuringly a single mother of three with no one else to help look after her children. The mother, out of other options, leaves Caroline with the car keys for air conditioner and leaves her children in the car for a job interview she seems to desperately need.

A lot of aspects add to the immersion of the story. From the camera being held at a child's eye-level to constant close-ups of Caroline's face so we can see exactly what she feels. We can clearly see the uncomfortable nervousness Caroline experiences and it causes the audience to sympathize with her. She's a child who doesn't understand what is going on and why.

We see Caroline's siblings clearly looking stifled by the heat. We also see Caroline's mother suffering to support her children and find the care they need. It raises the question: are some risks worth taking if you desperately need something to support your family?