Carol Review — Cate Crafter

Todd Haynes has made a perfect film with Carol, in the lead roles Mara and Blanchett are sensational, the mise-en-scene is sublime, the shooting of the film on Super 16 mm gives it this utterly gorgeous vintage feel and the story is really quite heart wrenching (and while it doesn’t take much to make me cry at the cinema this film hit me quite hard).

Set in 1950’s America, Carol explores the burgeoning relationship between a young shop girl Therese and an unhappily married housewife the eponymous Carol and how giving into their feelings for each other potentially ruins the laters life. Based on Patricia Highsmith’s Semi-autobiographical novel The Price of Salt the film feels very much rooted in reality which makes some of the scenes hard to watch, particularly when Carol and Therese discover that a seemingly kind and down on his luck salesman turns out to be a private investigator charged with the task of gathering evidence for Carol’s Husband to use against her in court and when Carol breaks down in a meeting between lawyers to settle the matter of custody she essentially gives in and admits defeat as there was no way she could win due to the overwhelming evidence of her homosexual behaviour that would essentially deem her to be an unfit mother if it were to be exposed.

All in all Carol is a very important film, it signifies how far society has come from the 1950s (when a woman had to be psychiatrically tested to see if she was sane for having a sexual relationship with another woman) to now, and while the LGBT community is slowly finding acceptance in society there still is a long way and therefore perhaps this film (like Blue is the Warmest Colour did in 2013) can help highlight the completely and utterly beautiful and real love that two women can share for each other so that society can stop judging and continue accepting.

This was stunningly shot, emotionally beautiful cinema at its best and most certainly one of the finest films of the year.

P.S. I’ll leave you with this haunting song from the Final episode of Hannibal as it kind of fits…and I’m just obsessed with Hannibal 😂