Carol (2015, R)

While this film wasn’t the knockout I was anticipating, it’s incredibly well-made and definitely worth watching.  All the actors do fine work in this beautifully-directed period piece, which immerses you in the quietly-repressed world they inhabit.

Therese, an intelligent but undistinguished girl living in 1950s New York, doesn’t know what’s about to begin when a chance encounter turns her on her head.  At the department store where she works, Therese is drawn to one of her customers, the alluring, soon-to-be divorcee Carol.  Carol is older, wealthier, and surer of what she wants.  Meanwhile, Carol is just as taken with young, artless Therese.  The two start taking small, unspoken steps toward one another but are thrown together by an unexpected hardship that besets Carol.

I had a tricky time pinning this film down.  It looks and sounds gorgeous from beginning to end – director Todd Haynes (who I know best from Velvet Goldmine) lets the essence of the period soak into every frame.  For me, though, it’s less successful on an emotional level.  The story is an intimate one, but for the most part, the direction doesn’t feel all that intimate.  This is a movie that feels like it’s holding you at arm’s length, which made it difficult for me to connect with the characters.

However, I think much of this is probably intentional.  In this time and place, among Carol’s class, women weren’t free to love in the open, and so much of the connection between Carol and Therese is understated, implied, both characters stopping just shy of where it seems they want to go.  In a situation like that, it’s vital for a film to convey the desire simmering underneath the polite phrases and carefully-arranged distance, and at times, it does so wonderfully.  This element comes through at different points in the film, always to good effect, but I feel it most strongly in a scene where both women are in the car and Therese is stealing glances at Carol.  We see only pieces of them in extreme close-ups – lips, hands, eyes – and it creates the sense that Therese is just skimming the surface of Carol because she’s not yet sure how to go further.  Unfortunately, there are stretches of the movie where this tug between inward and outward appearances isn’t very apparent, which makes the film feel kind of remote.

This distance carries over into the acting as well, although I think both (Oscar-nominated) leading ladies do what they can to reach us with the characters despite that.  As Carol, Cate Blanchett probably has the tougher job, since Carol is less a character in her own right and more a reflection of how Therese perceives her.  In scenes with her daughter, her (impending) ex-husband, and a friend/former lover, Carol feels better-realized than she does with Therese, where her characterization can sometimes get lost in being “mysterious and alluring Carol.”  Rooney Mara does well with Therese; she’s quiet and sensitive without being milquetoast, and she nicely portrays Therese’s gradual education and awakening.  Kyle Chandler is highly effective in the unflattering role of Carol’s husband, and Sarah Paulson, playing Carol’s best friend, lends an earnest, down-to-earth air to every scene she’s in.

Warnings

Drinking, smoking, language, thematic elements, and sexual content (including one sex scene.)