Rooney Mara, Cate Blanchett
“CAROL” My rating: B+
118 minutes | MPAA rating: R
You could describe “Carol” as a lesbian love story.
More accurately, it’s a love story in which the two main characters are women.
That’s an important difference.
The latest from adventurous indie auteur Todd Haynes is one of his most accessible works, a haunting and quietly erotic tale of love that, far from being forbidden, holds the promise of fulfillment.
Adapted by Haynes from Patricia Highsmith’s 1952 novel The Price of Salt, the film features Oscar-grabbing performances from Cate Blanchett and Rooney Mara and perhaps the most realistic evocation of the early 1950s I’ve ever seen in a movie (including movies made in the early 1950s, which somehow seem fantastically unreal).
Therese (Mara) is a quiet young woman who seems to be waiting for something to happen. Certainly she doesn’t expect much from her job selling toys in a big Manhattan department store during the Christmas season. She thinks maybe she’d like to try her hand at photography.
Nor does she sense much of a future with Richard (Jake Lacy), the boyfriend who wants to travel with her to France. The two are yet to consummate their relationship (remember, it’s the early 1950s).
Then one day the glamorous, well-heeled Carol (Blanchett) comes into the story to buy a present for her young daughter. The customer and the sales clerk strike up a conversation. Carol leaves her fancy gloves behind and Therese has them delivered to Carol’s posh home in the Jersey ‘burbs.
For this act of kindness Therese receives an invitation to tea. Her fascination with this beautiful and cultured older woman becomes a crush.
Butler's Cinema Scene 