Director: Todd Haynes
Writers: Phyllis Nagy, Patricia Highsmith
Photography: Edward Lachman
Music: Carter Burwell
Editor: Affonso Goncalves
Cast: Cate Blanchett, Rooney Mara, Kyle Chandler, Sarah Paulson, Jake Lacy, Carrie Brownstein, Cory Michael Smith, John Magaro, Kevin Crowley
Patricia Highsmith published her 1952 novel The Price of Salt under a pseudonym because she did not want to hurt her crime novel career (Strangers on a Train, The Talented Mr. Ripley) with this romantic drama about lesbians, the only one like it reportedly that she ever wrote. After twice declining to publish it under her own name, Highsmith ultimately relented with the Carol title in 1990, five years before her death. The novel was actually out of print in the ‘70s. All this may speak to how far we have come to get to this sumptuous Todd Haynes treatment, which makes the ‘50s look uncomfortably barbaric behind a sugary frosting façade of American contentment—reasonably accurate.
Todd Haynes has said he tends to divide his work between “boy” and “girl” movies: Poison, Velvet Goldmine, and I’m Not There for the boys, and Superstar, Safe, Far From Heaven, and the TV miniseries Mildred Pierce for the girls. And Carol, of course. I must say I was a little sorry to see Carol overtake Far From Heaven on the 21st-century list at They Shoot Pictures, Don’t They? I think Far From Heaven is the better example of Haynes’s adoration of the melodramas of midcentury Hollywood (by way of fleeing Nazi Germany) director Douglas Sirk. But I suppose it’s not just some recency effect catapulting Carol into critical favor. The picture has a number of features to recommend it.
Patricia Highsmith published her 1952 novel The Price of Salt under a pseudonym because she did not want to hurt her crime novel career (Strangers on a Train, The Talented Mr. Ripley) with this romantic drama about lesbians, the only one like it reportedly that she ever wrote. After twice declining to publish it under her own name, Highsmith ultimately relented with the Carol title in 1990, five years before her death. The novel was actually out of print in the ‘70s. All this may speak to how far we have come to get to this sumptuous Todd Haynes treatment, which makes the ‘50s look uncomfortably barbaric behind a sugary frosting façade of American contentment—reasonably accurate.
Todd Haynes has said he tends to divide his work between “boy” and “girl” movies: Poison, Velvet Goldmine, and I’m Not There for the boys, and Superstar, Safe, Far From Heaven, and the TV miniseries Mildred Pierce for the girls. And Carol, of course. I must say I was a little sorry to see Carol overtake Far From Heaven on the 21st-century list at They Shoot Pictures, Don’t They? I think Far From Heaven is the better example of Haynes’s adoration of the melodramas of midcentury Hollywood (by way of fleeing Nazi Germany) director Douglas Sirk. But I suppose it’s not just some recency effect catapulting Carol into critical favor. The picture has a number of features to recommend it.
Above all, it is an impressively drawn low-key drama, even with all its melodramatic trappings. Its plot points go to various extremes in the names of divorce and homophobia. The pain that confronts all these characters is tremendous, almost overwhelming in places. The movie strikes some of its notes with eerie accuracy, such as the brisk, light-soaked pleasures of midcentury Christmas shopping in downtown department stores. I caught the tail end of that scene as a kid in the ‘60s and the version here is an unusually vivid ideal of what I recall. Carol skates across the surface of the holiday season and assumes we understand the desperation going on under it.
A Christmas week road trip feels like alienation distilled, as brave as it also is in its way. This road trip is where Carol (Cate Blanchett) and Therese (Rooney Mara) escape and consummate their love affair. It is a hopeful beginning but soon followed by a betrayal that scatters them like magnetic poles pushed apart by their own forces. This is where the raging beasts of 1950s paranoia are most apparent, a blind heaving social storm that only leaves wreckage behind.
The movie is a wintertime release itself, a big starry production, and Oscar bait too, with Blanchett, Mara, Sarah Paulson, Kyle Chandler, and well-crafted smaller performances such as Carrie Brownstein as a partygoer. Carol got a handful of Oscar nominations, including both Blanchett and Mara. Some typical Academy controversy there as Blanchett was nominated for Best Actress and Mara for Best Supporting Actress, even though Mara actually has more screen time. However, let’s recall the title of the picture as well as Blanchett’s formidable talents. This is her picture all the way, even if there can be a distracting glow of artificiality about her, reminiscent of the one that dogs Daniel Day-Lewis. Maybe it's some feature of 21st-century performance style I’m not keeping up with. While I’m on the Oscars, Carter Burwell also got a nomination for the soundtrack, which is noticeably splendid.
My favorite players were the supporting roles of Paulson as Carol’s best friend and one-time lover, Abby, obviously a complicated relationship, never really explained (as if implying, like the movie at large, but who can explain relationships?). And Chandler shows some range as Carol’s execrably privileged WASP husband Harge. Did John Updike ever write about a character named Harge? Does it get any more WASPy than Harge? Harge, at any rate, is in the throes of a masculine panic over a wife who prefers other women sexually to him. Chandler, always likable but appearing in an unlikable role, very nearly pulls it off. For better or worse, he will probably always be a wholesome football coach to me, but in any case he makes the picture more interesting.
I think Carol might make a nice double feature with the 1998 picture High Art. Both have lesbian and coming out themes but there’s also a dynamic between the lovers in both that feels similar, that rhyme with each other in pleasing ways. Thus, in short, I think the TSPDT source critics are hyping Carol up just a little. It’s a good one but maybe not a great one, or at least a great one only in parts. And much of the credit for those parts—such as that Christmas week road trip—more likely goes to Highsmith than Haynes. For Haynes girl movies, contra the critics, I think you should go to Far From Heaven and Mildred Pierce first.
A Christmas week road trip feels like alienation distilled, as brave as it also is in its way. This road trip is where Carol (Cate Blanchett) and Therese (Rooney Mara) escape and consummate their love affair. It is a hopeful beginning but soon followed by a betrayal that scatters them like magnetic poles pushed apart by their own forces. This is where the raging beasts of 1950s paranoia are most apparent, a blind heaving social storm that only leaves wreckage behind.
The movie is a wintertime release itself, a big starry production, and Oscar bait too, with Blanchett, Mara, Sarah Paulson, Kyle Chandler, and well-crafted smaller performances such as Carrie Brownstein as a partygoer. Carol got a handful of Oscar nominations, including both Blanchett and Mara. Some typical Academy controversy there as Blanchett was nominated for Best Actress and Mara for Best Supporting Actress, even though Mara actually has more screen time. However, let’s recall the title of the picture as well as Blanchett’s formidable talents. This is her picture all the way, even if there can be a distracting glow of artificiality about her, reminiscent of the one that dogs Daniel Day-Lewis. Maybe it's some feature of 21st-century performance style I’m not keeping up with. While I’m on the Oscars, Carter Burwell also got a nomination for the soundtrack, which is noticeably splendid.
My favorite players were the supporting roles of Paulson as Carol’s best friend and one-time lover, Abby, obviously a complicated relationship, never really explained (as if implying, like the movie at large, but who can explain relationships?). And Chandler shows some range as Carol’s execrably privileged WASP husband Harge. Did John Updike ever write about a character named Harge? Does it get any more WASPy than Harge? Harge, at any rate, is in the throes of a masculine panic over a wife who prefers other women sexually to him. Chandler, always likable but appearing in an unlikable role, very nearly pulls it off. For better or worse, he will probably always be a wholesome football coach to me, but in any case he makes the picture more interesting.
I think Carol might make a nice double feature with the 1998 picture High Art. Both have lesbian and coming out themes but there’s also a dynamic between the lovers in both that feels similar, that rhyme with each other in pleasing ways. Thus, in short, I think the TSPDT source critics are hyping Carol up just a little. It’s a good one but maybe not a great one, or at least a great one only in parts. And much of the credit for those parts—such as that Christmas week road trip—more likely goes to Highsmith than Haynes. For Haynes girl movies, contra the critics, I think you should go to Far From Heaven and Mildred Pierce first.
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