The film, directed by Todd Haynes and based on a Patricia Highsmith novel, skews from the director’s previous forays into Douglas Sirk melodrama (his excellent Far From Heaven) to be something of a more pensive, contemplative piece. Thematically, it resonates now as much as it may ever have, but given gender politics being somewhat firebranded at this juncture, it becomes a more serious, important picture. One most certainly of the zeitgeist.
It’s a film made up of a series of moments; small encounters, and details. It’s a subtly beautiful piece of work in terms of its sets and costumes, its Carter Burwell score and muted tones from cinematographer Edward Lachman. But it’s also a remarkably strong piece of adapted writing, and powerful acting. Most platitudes have been centred on Blanchett’s work as the title character; while I can (and do) praise her work when it’s called for (Blue Jasmine), there have been times when what she does on screen seems all a bit …. acting college. Thick of accent, pronounced movements and gestures. Like it’s a scene workshop in class. Look at Notes from a Scandal, as a case in point (awful). In Carol, she has taken vast reams from the Lauren Bacall performance handbook, down to the husky line deliveries, to the point of it being distracting. The character itself, also, there’s something about her that I occasionally found – for the lack of a better word – predatory. There’s probably a lot to be said about my own prejudices in this regard to look at it that way, but it was there, lingering throughout the film and it was somewhat unsettling. As it happens, Blanchett has a pair of key scenes here, where her actual, tangible genius as an actor comes through (one has her deliver the line “We’re not ugly people…” with genuinely heartbreaking realism) which makes up for it. So another entry in the ‘w’ column for her.
But this film’s most significant selling point is the remarkable turn by Rooney Mara, so very good here, as she was in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, and her small, pivotal cameo in The Social Network. Her Therese is curious, understated, almost impish in an Audrey Hepburn-Funny Face kind of way. But Mara infuses it with tremendous gravitas and a performance of great, subtle dimensions. There is a shot that’s used as a kind of bookend, where Blanchett places her hand on Mara’s shoulder – the look this generates is one of profound longing. Profound. There was something deeply affecting about the way Haynes works this into his drama. It’s one of several small, and subtle, acting moments that just bowl you over in the film.
But, the big ticket item for me, the important takeaway from this cultural product – as the cis-gendered straight white male – is that there are three male characters who so perfectly represent the majority of my ‘sort’ in this world. One, Carol’s estranged husband (played by the Friday Night Lights chap), who employs lawyers, threats, blackmail, intimidation and psychoanalysis of all things to keep his wife in check. ‘How can you do this to me?’ he demands of her, after it becomes perfectly clear that he’s gone and married an ‘incurable’ lesbian. Second is Therese’s would-be suitor, who dismisses her feelings for Carol as being a schoolgirl crush. He’s bewildered that she’d be so fixated on a woman. After all, he proposed to her! The nerve of this woman! Thirdly, we have Therese’s colleague who gets her a photography job at The New York Times. She tells him of hers and Carol’s relationship, and his first response – one of misguided sympathy – is to ask ‘Is this because I tried to kiss you that time?’
These are a few moments which caused me pause for thought. The three key men in either Carol’s or Therese’s lives react to the two women’s relationship with each other, their orientations and choices, as being directly responsive to them, or because of them; particularly it is focussed on how it relates to them. A seriously important lesson to take from this, is that if you are a man, the one thing most men don’t seem to get when it comes to the ladies (Sapphic or otherwise) is this: dudes, it simply ain’t about you.
Carol is a significantly important film in terms of the cultural conversation, and the ongoing, evolving state of gender, orientation and broadened acceptance in society. It’s also a moving, beautifully rendered film by a director of purpose and vision. One of the best of the season.