CAROL
by IMDb

Achingly tender romance about how love is a part of the human condition.

IMBD Author: Sergeant_Tibbs from Suffolk, England

Spoilers removed

It's an inevitability that Carol will face categorisation as an LGBT film, but that's not the limits of how it should be considered. It's simply a heartfelt and deeply human love story where the principle couple confronts insurmountable odds. In Carol's case, these obstacles are the prejudices of the time and culture they live in.

Todd Haynes is known for his heightened style that evokes the melodrama of Douglas Sirk, for instance. His 2002 film Far From Heaven feels plucked from the cinema of the 1950s. However, Carol is a film that feels plucked from the New York streets of the 1950s as the aesthetic here is surprisingly naturalistic. It doesn't quite breach a documentary-esque style with Edward Lachman's understated and pleasantly grainy cinematography, but it all comes organically and authentically with the elegant fashion of production and costume design and the atmosphere that its cold Christmas setting provides. It's a very restrained film but the film carries an air of sexual and romantic tension throughout.

As Carol, Cate Blanchett challenges her polar opposite and equally excellent work with Haynes as a Bob Dylan incarnation in I'm Not There here. By nature of the film's structure, the first half is in the perspective of Therese and the second focuses on the perspective of Carol. There's an interesting inaccessibility about Blanchett in the first half that draws you into Therese's infatuation. Mara, one of the most promising actresses of this decade since her small memorable part in The Social Network, uses her own reserved detachness ? something she's been frequently criticised for ? to her own advantage. To watch someone like Therese open up after being so repressed is thoroughly cathartic.

However, Blanchett whips the film from under her feet in the second half. She litters the first half of the film with nuanced hints and clues to her past desires, also communicating so much with very little. She's elusive, but Mara is a key source of intrigue at that point due to the honesty in her performance and unexpected dry wit. Once Carol is struggling to deal with her own internal conflicts, Blanchett is on fire and burns the house down with her ultimate rebuttal of the accusations against her. Kyle Chandler, her suffering husband soon to be ex-husband, shows such painful anguish in his brief outbursts. It's a measured performance that anchors the film and the stakes of the relationships. Every performance of the ensemble ? from extras to bit parts ? are delivering among their finest work.

"I miss you... I miss you..."

IMBD Author: mattiasflgrtll6 from Sweden

Spoilers removed

Finally. FINALLY. This is the movie which completely overwhelmed my expectations and blew me away. First off, the story itself is already incredibly captivating. It takes place during a time period where homosexuality was not only frowned upon, but there were even laws against it. So seeing the two of them facing struggles in order to keep in contact with each other is fascinating to behold. And it is because the love story is so damn beautiful. There is a lot of visual language. Eye contact and body language often speaks for itself. And it's excellently executed, as you sometimes know exactly how these two character are feeling without a single word spoken. And even the dialogue itself has subtlety to it. There are plenty of times where either Carol or Therese insinuate feelings by using seemingly casual sentences. "Your perfume... it smells good." is really just a synonym for "I want to kiss you". "Oh stop it, you look perfect!" can very well mean "I want to spend the rest of my life with you." The lines are not obvious giveaways and I love it. The audience gets to think for themselves.

I can't remember the last time I have been as touched by a movie. It hit my heart just in the right places, and when I walked out of the theater I felt like I had just experienced someone else's life.

An Affair to Forget

IMDB Author: thesar-2 from United States

Spoilers removed

Apparently, the novel this movie's based on came out more than half a century ago and the movie version should've been released in about half that time in order to be fresh, daring, original or topical. But, today, it's just out of place.

Sure, Carol, the movie that is, shows us a ton of 1950s women who like to smoke and eat in restaurants. Repeatedly. It's a wonder none of them coughed once or gained weight since that was the bulk of the film. In between those smoking and eating scenes were dry spells of two character drawn to each other for chance coincidence of two women liking other women. As good of actresses as the leads are, I never bought their chemistry or depth.

Basically ? and that's what this is, basic ? two women meet. One rich, the other aimless. One getting divorced, the other clinging onto affection. Suddenly there's a road trip to clear the title character's mind after the thought she might lose custody of her child in the divorce. Forced romance ensues and?the rest is spoilers, albeit obvious.

I didn't find the story compelling, or even interesting enough to care about any of the characters. Rooney Mara's Therese, the lost one, spends the grand majority of the film just staring off into nothingness while, I suppose, we're supposed to see depth in her. (Hint: I didn't.) Cate Blanchett's Carol, the richie one, seems to be in another movie, in another room, just reading lines from the script.

It would be easy just to call this movie boring and dismiss it. But, it really is that. Barely anything happens and the stuff that does, I've seen countless times before in both gay and straight forbidden love films. Only, those movies had complexity, decent to great cinematography and chemistry between the leads?so we could, you know, root for the forbidden love.

Sadly, I don't have much positive to say about this. I wanted to like Blanchett, as I almost always do, but I didn't. I wanted to marvel, once again, at Mara, but she seemed as lost as her character. I did, however, really like the ex-lover character of Abby, played by the wonderful American Horror Story regular, Sarah Paulson. She would be my only vote here for an award nomination. But, even then, I wouldn't be voting for her underused part.

I didn't hate this, or even really dislike it that much. I would've had to care more to think that hard on it. It's just a movie I do regret seeing and won't be visiting Carol again.