On a celebratory birthday trip, Caroline (Marguerite Moreau) visits her sister, Jackie (Bitsie Tulloch) and her boyfriend. But what starts out as a fun evening with close friends quickly goes askew, as the effects of the sisters’ obscure past begins to take its toll on the night’s affair. Caroline and the group attempt to support Jackie for an apparent illness – though it’s unclear who really needs the most help.
Caroline and Jackie is ar arthouse drama film written and directed by Adam Christian Clark. Set in Los Angeles over the course of one night, the script focuses on the emotionally complex relationship between two sisters and their close group of friends.
About the Story (2013)
The film opens with a reunion between two siblings: Caroline (Marguerite Moreau) and her younger sister Jackie (Bitsie Tulloch). Caroline arrives at Jackie’s house for a long-needed visit, where she almost immediately sets off her long-suffering sister, much to the chagrin of Jackie’s latest boyfriend Ryan, (David Giuntoli). While the sisters clearly love each other, something is obviously amiss between the pair.
Long-standing issues and gripes are revealed swiftly, but Caroline and Jackie swing between tiffing with each other and skipping down a street and singing childhood songs together within moments. Their relationship is obviously a complicated one – but it feels steeped in truth and the knotted roots of all families. The sisters’ relationship will prove even more complicated than first imagined during the course of the film’s slim and swift 85-minute runtime.
The film’s opening credits have a lingering sense of unease to them, which is capitalized on as soon as Caroline and Jackie arrive at the “surprise birthday party” Caroline has planned for Jackie (despite her birthday not being for two months and it actually being Caroline‘s birthday) – where the dynamic between the pair (and Ryan, to some degree) is pushed out to the larger group, ratcheted up by rapid cuts and lingering looks between Jackie’s friends. But it’s not just a surprise dinner party that Caroline has put together – when the group ends up back at Jackie’s place, the real “party” is revealed. It’s an intervention for Jackie, headed up by Caroline, who hopes that she and Jackie’s friends can help her with a variety of issues – anorexia, pill abuse, alcoholism, and even sexual promiscuity.
When Jackie inevitably flees the house, much of the tension of the film is deflated, but it does allow deeper character reveals, with Caroline making a move on another intervention attendee (or two), Jackie taking off for a bar, and every one of Jackie’s supposedly worried friends acting less than caring. Clark uses some noticeable and basic plot tricks – pulling people apart and putting them back together, mixing up interactions between different characters, changing locations – but they all serve his aim, which is to slowly unfold the story in a believable way.[
Caroline and Jackie (2013)
Directed by: Adam Christian Clark
Starring: Marguerite Moreau, Bitsie Tulloch, David Giuntoli, Valerie Azlynn
Jason Gray-Stanford Jason Gray-Stanford
Screenplay by: Adam Christian Clark
Production Design by: Alan Farkas
Cinematography by: Christian Swegal
Film Editing by: Adam Christian Clark, Lisa Hendricks
Costume Design by: Jennifer Giersbrook
Set Decoration by: Kristy Winter McCaw, Walter Molina
Music by: Lisbeth Scott
MPAA Rating: None.
Studio: Phase 4 Films
Release Date: May 3, 2013
Visits: 85
