Review of Carol (2015) by Cole J — 15 Jan 2016

Todd Haynes, Rooney Mara, and Cate Blanchett have created an internal romance that speaks deeply through the eyes of the actresses and Haynes' understated direction.

Rooney Mara and Cate Blanchett are incredible at conveying so much meaning in every subtlety. Watching their faces and eyes alone will tell you so much about the characters, their lives, and their passions. Mara's character is in a relationship with a man she has no passion for that she's fallen into because of her saying "yes" to everything. Haynes constructs this "yes" society of the time period through the careful crafting of the production elements to look almost like it was filmed during the 50s. It all feels so conventional and structured, which makes it feel more powerful as the characters attempt to venture outside of that. The cinematography helps us to feel how distant Therese feels from society, and Carol becomes her escape from that, her something more. Through Mara's performance, we feel the ignition of sparks in her eyes when she is around Carol, and the emptiness outside of that relationship.

Blanchett's Carol is magnetic and carefully composed on the surface, and like Mara, she always allows us to see beneath her exterior. The biggest difference between Therese and Carol is their maturity. Carol understands what happens in relationships like hers and Therese's, but Therese is yet to realize. She also struggles with the custody of her daughter in a divorce that she's making between her and her resistant husband, played by a great Kyle Chandler. Blanchett, like Mara, shows how her character feels distant from society, struggling not to compromise her passions for conformity, but with more understanding of the way the world works than Therese.

The way that Mara and Blanchett exchange looks is a miracle of acting, able to communicate so much with so little. They deliver the film's carefully used dialogue with deep understanding of the truth of the material. A phone call that takes place around the midpoint of the film conveys a lifetime of suppressed feeling with only two short lines of dialogue.

Technically, the meticulousness of Haynes' craft is undeniable, but it's also all purposeful. The overall style is a less extreme version of the 50s mimicking Haynes did with Far From Heaven, giving the film a distinct feel for its period and a freedom to use more modern techniques. Right down to the colors of the walls, every element is carefully chosen to create precise feeling and moods in a film that relies so heavily on the audience reading them.

Carol shows us two women who live for the sparks they get from their passions, but whose passions aren't allowed. Therese and Carol face the turmoil that comes with trying to live a life of love under futile conditions. Like the train sets in the film, the train always comes back to where it started, but that doesn't mean it isn't worth boarding.

After watching Carol two times, I can say that it gets better the more one thinks about it, and that not everyone will have the same visceral response. My emotional response was mixed, not as powerful as I wanted it to be, or as others have had, but that's simply how the movie is. Without a doubt, Carol is a great and singular film with a lot of meaning that expertly tells a love story through the insides.