Carol (2015) Review

Where to start? Carol, directed by the wonderful LGBT filmmaker Todd Haynes and based on the 1952 novel "The Price of Salt" by thriller./crime author Patriciaa Haighsmith, was one of last year's most acclaimed films, and with good reason. It tells the story of Tarez (Rooney Mara), a young and naive shop girl who meets Carol (Cate Blanchett), a socialite with quite the scandalous secret. I'll admit, when I first saw the film, I was more then slightly disappointed... my only other exposure to Haighsmith's work was Anthonly Mighnella's 1999 adaptation of her book "The Talented Mr. Ripley". That film will easily go down as one of my top 10 films of all time! And my only exposure to Hanes' work was his 2002 masterpiece "Far From Heaven", another work that'll most likely end up on my list. While FFH was extremly devoted to the style of 50's melodrama, going so far as to crcreate the camera movment, composition, and color schemes present in such films of the time, Carol has a far more "realistic" style designed to resemble 50's street photography. The colors are soft pastels which are given a lovely texture by the use of 16 MM film stock. Another thing I noticed was that many of the images in the film were heavily layered frames-within-frames, similar to Wong Kar-Wei's In the Mood For Love. As far as acting is convened, Rooney Mara's Tarez is technically the protagonist of the film, as she apparently was in the original novel. While I'm not overly familiar with Mara (No, I haven't seen The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo), I can say she gives a fantastically realistic and lovely performance as a girl stepping into a worl she is not familiar with, and how she adapts back to her old life upon laving in. Indeed, a similar performance and character i was reminded of while watching was Saoirse Ronan in last year's Brooklyn. The crown jewel in the acting crown of this film however is Cate Blanchett as Carol Aired. When we first meet Carol, she's extremely calm, cool, and collected, and draws in Tarez like a spider into it's web. She reminded me much of Greta Garbo and the way she perused her men way back when. But as things begin to fall apart, the tables turn, with Carol becoming the delicate and scared one while Tarez becomes the stronger of the two (to me, anyways). Rounding out the performances is Kyle Chandler as Carol's stubborn ex-husband Harge. He's a man who you could say is the antagonist of the story, but given the circumstances of the time, he's a man who only wants what's best for his daughter, as does Carol as well, so he has a good character arc, you both feel for him, and hate him at once! Good show! All in all, this is a fantastic, romantic, and unique film, you have to see it!