CAROL | FILM REVIEW
Carol – based on Patricia Highsmith’s semi-autobiographical novel The Price of Salt – is the perfect film, the type of film that rarely gets made these days, and if they do get made it’s usually by an auteur like Todd Haynes. A romantic drama about a love affair between two women, one younger and the other older – it could be seen as a companion piece to Hayne’s 2002 film Far From Heaven, which dealt with similar themes of sexuality in an era when such things were simply illegal.
At the risk of waxing lyrical, Cate Blanchett is superb. As the titular Carol she is the immaculate society woman, the smallest movement conveys her character and how she’s feeling – just by moving a strand of hair with her hand the audience knows who she is. Carol proves that Blanchett deserves her Oscar and it might even result in her adding more awards to it. Not to say that Rooney Mara isn’t brilliant, at times both women convey everything without saying much at all, but it’s easy to see why her character falls for Blanchett’s Carol.
The other star of the film is pretty much everything else – the cinematography, set design, costume and music. Cinematographer Ed Lachman shot on 16mm film, which gives it the grainy, old-fashioned look; Cincinnati stands in for 1950s New York, but it’s more the New York of Breakfast at Tiffany’s rather than featuring any recognisable landmarks that we’re used to seeing in movies; and aside from the obvious film-history influences (Douglas Sirk) the whole thing, at times, looks like an Edward Hopper or Norman Rockwell painting come to life. It’s hard to see how Haynes made this film without the use of a time-machine. Carter Burwell’s score betrays an underlying sense of melancholic foreboding that lies behind the central theme – on the surface a romance, but at times it slides into thriller territory; the lovers travel away for the festive season but are ion the run – from Carol’s broken marriage and a private investigator.
Carol is something of a mainstream/art-house film, and it’s brilliant.
words CHRIS WILLIAMS
