Swede Caroline (2024) Movie Drinking Game
Down a Shot: each time an argument breaks out between two characters
By: Vidal D’costa (Three Beers) –
A documentary filmmaker signs up to follow the controversial Caroline around as the passionate gardener partakes in giant veggie growing tournaments and battles the gender politics, gatekeeping, bamboozling, and corruption at its roots, while also setting out on a quest to solve a break-in that’s left her ‘marrow-less’.
A Toast
This mockumentary is carried by a cast that boasts a lot of familiar faces if you’re a longtime aficionado of British comedy, all of whom impress with their impeccable comic timing (even if the supremely funny Aisling Bea and Ray Fearon are sadly underutilized in their brief roles as a private investigator couple under whom Caroline works as a part-time note-taker, and who both share a kink for cracking dirty jokes on the job and are insinuated to be swingers). Jo Hartley leads the cast as the titular character and delivers a sincere act as a quirky but determined middle-aged gardener from a middle-class background who pours her metaphorical blood, sweat, tears, and a whole lot of fertiliser/compost/fish guts into her backyard in a desperate yet gumption-fueled bid to fulfil her dreams of winning first place in the female category (unfortunately ’tis but a dream for all womankind that’s nipped in the bud due to sexism and a fiendish hairline fissure that mysteriously appears on one of her prized gourds).
Co-star Richard Lumsden is also a hoot as Caroline’s neighbour, the protective and self-designated ‘man of the house’ Paul who is determined as ever to catch the marrow thieves by hook or crook. The scenes featuring Paul opting for old school albeit altogether ineffective ‘home remedies’ to crack the case of the missing marrows, a la ‘discount Columbo’ after the services of the private detective duo prove expensive, as well as his hilarious over-the-top reactions in ensuring that the ‘crime scene’ (Caroline’s greenhouse) isn’t contaminated particularly offer a wheelbarrow full of laughs.
The humour is as wry and quintessentially British as it comes and occasionally peppered with dark comedic moments such as the documentary filmmaker mentioning the curious case of the death of Caroline’s former husband, with the latter ominously implying that he accidentally drowned in a vat of honey, but then changing up the cause of death to a far more eccentric, unsettling, and entirely implausible scenario the very next minute.
Beer Two
The movie’s sluggish pacing proves to be its undoing, and the tedium seeps into portions of the latter half despite a promising first half.
Beer Three
The mockumentary format itself distracts from the whodunit elements and often feels forced into the narrative, unfocused, or even out of place.
Verdict
Swede Caroline isn’t the most insane or engaging whodunit comedy/mockumentary out there and held more potential, but is nonetheless salvaged by an altogether unique concept, quirky and likeable characters, as well as a hilarious cast who play it deadpan while simultaneously keeping one in splits with their apt comic timing during the comedic interludes, thus overshadowing its overall underwhelming and uneven execution… much like a towering ash tree on a sunny day.
