Review // Carol

[projekktor id=’22408′]

Beautifully designed and deftly directed, Todd Haynes’ Carol is the most engrossing love story to hit the screen this year. Never mind that it’s a lesbian love story. Though that’s clearly an important part of the story considering it’s set in the 1950s, the film’s subject matter is universal. It’s also far more relatable than any rom-com or Nicholas Sparks drivel that we usually take for our on-screen romance. Featuring mesmerizing performances from Cate Blanchett and Rooney Mara in the lead roles, and note-perfect turns from Kyle Chandler and Sarah Paulson, the film is a story of loneliness and desire. It is about that foggy, disorienting experience of falling deeply and helplessly in love.

The film is based on the ground-breaking novel The Price of Salt written by Patricia Highsmith (though originally published under a pseudonym, as were the times), and adapted for the screen by Phyllis Nagy. It follows Therese Belivet (Mara), a young woman working at the toy counter of a department store in 1950s Manhattan. An aspiring photographer but doing nothing about it, Therese puts up with a disapproving boss while casually fending off the good-natured advances of her boyfriend Richard (Jake Lacey), who is gently pushing for their relationship to take the next step. Though her film-critic friend Dannie is eager to help her get a foot in the door at the New York Times, Therese is uncertain. She is in a state of stasis, lonely, unsure of her place in the world and unable to make any decisions about her future. As she tells Richard, “I barely know what to order for lunch.”

However this existential ennui instantly dissolves when she meets Carol Aird (Blanchett), a rich, sophisticated mother and near-divorcee from New Jersey. Popping into the department store to buy a train set for her daughter, Carol forgets her gloves on the counter. After Therese returns them with a Christmas card, the two agree to meet for lunch. What follows is an innocent lunch at a diner which is simultaneously a mesmerizing seduction, layered with sexual tension thicker than pea soup. It’s a brilliant piece of filmmaking and one of the stand-out scenes of the year. When it’s over, you’re hooked, and the love affair between Carol and Therese moves forward like a force of nature.

But this is the 1950s after all, and the relationship between the women is not looked upon kindly by society or the men in their lives. Carol’s past relationships with women – especially a serious relationship with her close friend Abby (Paulson) – are known to her husband Harge (Chandler) who threatens to take away her custody rights if she doesn’t break it off with Therese. Hesitant to tell Richard the truth, Therese confides in Dannie through her photographs, but is never able to speak her feelings aloud. Instead the women must play out their affair in subtext and suggestion. As the women set off on a road trip across the Midwest every interaction they have with hotel clerks or bell boys is like a subtle game. Every touch and glance carries with it a secret power. Just as Dannie is “charting the correlation between what the characters say and what they really feel” in his film studies, Haynes places his characters in a situation where speaking openly about their feelings is impossible, yet the meaning is never lost.

Adding more dimension to the world is the films beautiful production design which brings to life a sort of gauzy, picture-postcard New York City. The richly textured surfaces, from the condensation on the car windows, to the clothing (Carol’s furs, Therese’s sweaters) to the curtains and beds of the motel rooms all help to bring to life a time in America when outward appearance regularly belied what was happening behind closed doors.

For a tale of forbidden love, Carol never dwells too long on the negative. The homophobia and sexism that the characters face serves to give the story some stakes, but it’s not the true interest of the film. Harge and Richard, while unable to understand the relationship between the women, never act out of convenient movie malice. They see the women as objects of desire and are frustrated by their inability to have them, but they are never treated as emotionless villains. In fact it is because they love them that they act out against them. It’s a refreshing take on a genre that too often sets its protagonists up against vengeful, hate-filled antagonists with no motivations besides the quashing of gay rights. In Carol the true enemy is the time period, and the societal expectations everyone labours beneath. It makes you wish Patricia Highsmith had lived to see her story so powerfully brought to life on the big screen, pseudonym free.

Reviewed by Evan Arppe.