Monday, January 11, 2016

Carol

I went to see Carol Sunday afternoon because Cate Blanchett's performance has garnered quite a bit of Oscar buzz but I left the theater completely blown away by Rooney Mara!  The film begins with a man interrupting a conversation fraught with tension between Therese (Mara) and Carol (Blanchett) and then flashes back to their first meeting to tell the story of how the two women got to that point (not a very original framing device but effective enough).  Therese is a young and naive woman who aspires to be a photographer but is temporarily working at a department store for the holidays in New York during the 1950s.  She has a sweet boyfriend who want to marry her but she is unsure of her feelings.  Carol, a beautiful and wealthy suburbanite going through a messy divorce, comes into the department store to buy a Christmas present for her daughter.  Therese helps her and, when Carol accidentally leaves her gloves on the counter, she retrieves her information from the sales slip and returns the gloves.  This leads to lunch, then a friendship, and then a passionate affair.  The nature of the relationship between Therese and Carol is the exact opposite of what I was expecting!  I thought that Therese would be the pursuer, leading Carol to completely disrupt the seemingly perfect life she had with her husband and daughter but Carol, who has had relationships with other women before, is the aggressor and she overwhelms the innocent Therese with just a smoldering glance.  I loved two things about the story.  First, neither woman is ashamed of the relationship, even in the repressive 1950s, and Carol refuses to admit that her homosexuality is wrong just for the sake of winning custody of her daughter.  Second, the relationship doesn't move forward until Therese becomes Carol's equal.  She lives on her own, begins a successful career in photography, and then chooses to be with Carol.  It is a compelling narrative that is beautifully told.  The production design and costumes perfectly capture the elegance of the 1950s and I thought the repeated use of the color red, especially against the stark white of winter, is particularly effective in portraying the vibrancy of the two women.  I loved the score because it is moody, atmospheric, and emotional.  Of course both Blanchett and Mara give incredible performances.  Blanchett is absolutely luminous and conveys more with just one look across a crowded room than many actresses do with pages of dialogue.  However, I was particularly impressed with Mara's ability to portray Therese's innocence and vulnerability (especially since my only exposure to her was as the antisocial hacker Lisbeth Salander in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo).  The scene where she silently cries on the train is incredibly affecting.  The Oscar buzz surrounding this movie is entirely justified and I recommend it.

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