I love her.
I can’t help you with that.
Carol features two of our finest working actresses. If a gun was put to my head, I’d pick Cate Blanchett as our greatest working actress; Rooney Mara is certainly one of the two or three best actresses in their thirties. The chance to see them working together is too good to pass up. This tale of a lesbian love affair is sensitively and beautifully directed by Todd Haynes. He captures a dreamy, moody atmosphere; this is one of the most visually beautiful movies of 2015 certainly and it’s a movie you drift through. The narrative is as simple as they come; there’s no propulsion to the plot or to the pace. This isn’t an insult; it allows Haynes to stretch out and let the film drift by like clouds in the sky. It’s a luminous, poetic, gorgeous film. Kyle Chandler is excellent as Carol’s husband; I’ve seen him called the villain, but the script is too nuanced for such terms. He’s a real human being and not an evil one or a bad one, just a man struggling with a situation he could never have even imagined. Sarah Paulson continues a run of brilliant supporting turns as one of Carol’s ex-lovers. The film and the performances are all very minimal; this isn’t a film about histrionics or melodrama. It’s a film about those moments that are somehow more intense because they’re so quiet. It’s a film about the wordless looks and the minutiae of body language. And a word for Carter Burwell’s beautiful score, minimal and piano based. There isn’t a whole lot to say about the film; it’s a simple story simply told, but the emotion is all the more powerful for the repression. For all the controversy over the lesbian content, this one’s a good, old-fashioned character drama, the kind people say they don’t make anymore. 4 stars.
tl;dr – perfect performances and sensitive direction make this love story a beautiful, dreamy masterpiece. 4 stars.