The electric train, circling a model town in the fancy Manhattan department store decorated for Christmas, evokes the classic film Holiday Affair. But although set in the same era and commencing in a department store crowded with Christmas shoppers, the affair in Carol is of a different nature than the Robert Mitchum-Janet Leigh romance. In director Todd Haynes’ film, two women are drawn together by love and desire, Carol (Cate Blanchett) and Therese (Rooney Mara).
Based on the once-shocking novel The Price of Salt by Patricia Highsmith (The Talented Mr. Ripley), Carol recreates the caution and danger of lesbianism in post-World War II New York. Wearing elegant hats and looking regal in furs, Carol is an upper-class housewife, a composition in social restraint and prep school hauteur. Therese is a shy girl of lower origins, an aspiring photographer working behind a department store counter and evading the marital designs of her eager boyfriend.
Quiet, longing gazes, gestures that convey more than words could safely say and pregnant silences set the emotional tone. Mara is remarkable as the diffident ingénue—an Audrey Hepburn about to discover her own deepest secrets. Blanchett’s performance is also unforgettable. Haynes gets the setting just right. Even the window shade, with an “o” at the end of the pull string, is correct for the period.
Carol
4 stars
Cate Blanchett
Rooney Mara
Directed by Todd Haynes
Rated R
For David Luhrssen’s Top-10 films of 2015, go to I Hate Hollywood at shepherdexpress.com.
