Carol (15.)
Directed by Todd Haynes.
Starring Cate Blanchett, Rooney Mara, Sarah Paulson, Kyle Chandler, Jack Lacy and John Magaro. 118 mins.
Film composer Carter Burwell is, in a field known for its bombast, a master of understatement. His best scores are softly insistent, summoning up a gentle foreboding while at the same time being quietly enticing; they work overtime drawing audiences into a film maker's off beat vision. He is best known for his work with the Coen Brothers but has found a perfect fit in this fifties romance between two ladies. The discrete way he underscores emotions is ideal for a tale of a love that dare not speak its name, set in a time when a lid was kept on that kind of thing.
In the winter of 1952, the well to do Carol (Blanchett) is looking for a Christmas present for her daughter in Manhattan when she catches the eye of shop girl Therese (Mara.) A romance cautiously develops, but it is complicated by her husband's reluctance to let their marriage end and a custody battle for their child.
Carol is like an Oscar Pleader that has become a real film. It has all the Academy baiting element – period setting, liberal agenda, based on a novel And a true story, an autobiographical novel written under a pseudonym by Patricia Highsmith.
And it has Cate Blanchett in it. A Blanchett performance is never a casual or relaxed thing. Carol looks immaculate in every scene, while Blanchett is meticulous controlled in everything she does. And she needs to be: this is a film of small moments and tiny gestures, everything has to be carefully measured. Playing against her, Rooney Mara, is almost entirely reactive. She doesn't need to show you all the effort she is making, she just instinctively gets it right. However much Carol loves her, it can't match the adoration with which the camera lingers over her every move. They make an odd pairing they accurately mirror the relationship dynamic between the two characters. They are miss matched, but miss matched like people in love.
Directed by Todd Haynes.
Starring Cate Blanchett, Rooney Mara, Sarah Paulson, Kyle Chandler, Jack Lacy and John Magaro. 118 mins.
Film composer Carter Burwell is, in a field known for its bombast, a master of understatement. His best scores are softly insistent, summoning up a gentle foreboding while at the same time being quietly enticing; they work overtime drawing audiences into a film maker's off beat vision. He is best known for his work with the Coen Brothers but has found a perfect fit in this fifties romance between two ladies. The discrete way he underscores emotions is ideal for a tale of a love that dare not speak its name, set in a time when a lid was kept on that kind of thing.
In the winter of 1952, the well to do Carol (Blanchett) is looking for a Christmas present for her daughter in Manhattan when she catches the eye of shop girl Therese (Mara.) A romance cautiously develops, but it is complicated by her husband's reluctance to let their marriage end and a custody battle for their child.
Carol is like an Oscar Pleader that has become a real film. It has all the Academy baiting element – period setting, liberal agenda, based on a novel And a true story, an autobiographical novel written under a pseudonym by Patricia Highsmith.
And it has Cate Blanchett in it. A Blanchett performance is never a casual or relaxed thing. Carol looks immaculate in every scene, while Blanchett is meticulous controlled in everything she does. And she needs to be: this is a film of small moments and tiny gestures, everything has to be carefully measured. Playing against her, Rooney Mara, is almost entirely reactive. She doesn't need to show you all the effort she is making, she just instinctively gets it right. However much Carol loves her, it can't match the adoration with which the camera lingers over her every move. They make an odd pairing they accurately mirror the relationship dynamic between the two characters. They are miss matched, but miss matched like people in love.
