Carol (2015)

A tender romance that waits patiently for you to fall in love, and a coming of age story that subtly waves from across the street.

Director Todd Haynes went into this film with one word in mind: understatement. Every detail from the dialogue to the acting, from the cinematography to the soundtrack, everything thrives in it's lack of ostentatiousness. It's a love story, one so familiar yet so welcoming. Meet Therese (Rooney Mara), a young disenfranchised retail worker trying to make it through the Christmas season of 1952 (if that isn't heartbreaking enough, just hold your horses). Other than a cantankerous supervisor at work, Therese seems surrounded by friends who respect her, and men who want to be with her.

Now let's just pause a moment to examine something important here. Men.

Or to be more precise, the opening moments of the film go to great lengths to demonstrate something: everywhere Therese looks, she sees men. Whether she's looking at a couple walking through the department store, or even all the various toys ready to be sold to a horde of holiday shoppers, there's always a man.

And Therese couldn't care less.

With a handful of simple camera close-ups that could have been missed in the blink of an eye, the director shows us a crucial detail about Therese: she is utterly and totally uninterested in men. Being able to pull that off without a word said, in the space of about 10 seconds, well I was impressed anyway. But though it may have been made abundantly clear to the audience that Therese was more than a typical heterosexual heroin, the truly sad thing was that the character didn't seem to know it herself. When I realised that, I instantly felt the need to pop into the the TV with a hot chocolate and a hug and have a long chat with Therese. Immediately I started to think 'ah, this will be a film, not about the romance, but about forbidden love in the 50's.' It is to my lasting joy that I couldn't have been more wrong. Carol avoids falling into the pit of writing a gay romance as nothing more than a taboo love story, but insteads writes a story that is...really just about love. So far, Therese is winning some brownie points. And not only is she an unsatisfied retail worker, but a struggling artist too, a photographer no less! Longing for a way to share her art with the world but lacking the passion and drive to create something she can truly be proud of, oh my what a familiar tune! Which of us doesn't long for a grateful audience, a throng of followers to validate every move we make just to let us know that we aren't alone or stupid? For a moment I had worried she was nothing more than a shy, lonely twenty-something, but thankfully the director was on hand to leave a few careful hand-written notes to remind me that she was so much more.

Enter: Carol (Cate Blanchett), everything that Therese isn't. Where Therese is quiet, Carol is confident. Where Therese is shy, Carol is a temptress. The moment she sweeps into the room with her fashionable fur and a look that could floor a tempestuous rhino, Carol instantly begs the camera to stare at her (and of course, Therese too). To Blanchett's credit (as if there could ever be any doubt), she brings desirability into every movement she makes, every glance, every uttered word. You can't help but become obssessed, and neither can Therese.

Again I was almost worried that here we were with yet another love story about one shy person and one confident person, yin and yang, night and day. Perfectly on cue, the director popped up again just to nudge me in the right direction. Carol is not just the counter to her muted screen partner, but a deeply troubled and vexed mother in the midst of a brutal conflict of her own. Suddenly, it became clear what the film was about, being vunerable at times of great change, as you grow from one person into another. Though I must admit, less was done with this theme than I expected. I was waiting for more vocalisation from Therese on how the events of the story were impacting her, how she felt as a young person finally discovering who she was. Sadly I was left waiting, though in fairness that was quite characteristic of her. I also wish I had seen more of the difficulties that Carol faced as a mother. The film did an incredible job of setting up Carol's personal woes and binding you to her as she tried to maintain her sophisticated mask for her adorable daughter. But unfortunately this was left to the side for a large central portion of the story before being revisited for the final act. Though again, in a way the very absence of these imbellishments only added to the slowly growing feeling throughout the film that these two lonely people couldn't think about anything else other than each other.

And my oh my they take their time falling in love. But it works. It just works. Casting off the shackles of 'fiery passion that strikes the moment they set eyes on each other,' instead the director creates an ode to life by making them wait, making them think, making them sweat, until they can't control themselves any longer.

Carol is a beautiful film that transcends a simple love story, yet sits comfortably within the confines of a romantic drama. I cannot criticise what it contains, but perhaps what it missed out, I long to know if there were any more stories to be told. Carol tells us a familiar story, you just won't recognise how it's told.

4.5/5 - When love is this honest, who needs reality?