Todd Haynes’ Carol is such a fragile little movie. Like the porcelain dolls sets always lurking in the background or occasionally presented at the forefront, everything about the latest from the Far From Heaven director is so meticulously, delicately beautiful. Its soft-handed emotions, its glossed-eyed look at ‘50s New York, its compassionately sensual look at blossoming love is so familiar and yet so distant. At any second could the sides snap, the pieces crumble. But they don’t. They stay so cautiously, finely composed together that it’s a marvel to not only look at, but to admire from afar. It’s gorgeous in every possible sense, and that the emotions at the forefront radiate at nearly the same intensity is a testament to a veteran filmmaker fully immersed in his peak form.
Based on Patricia Highsmith’s 1952 novel The Prince of Salt, Carol is a movie 60 years in the making. It comes at a time where nothing is left to shock, nothing is meant to feel alien or confusing. It’s a simple love story centered on the emotions rather than the actions, focused on a lonely wannabe New York photographer Therese Belivet’s (Rooney Mara) and a sensuous relationship she forms with the older, metropolitan Carol Aird (Cate Blanchett). Though the film is only two minutes short of two hours, it feels as though everything happens in real time. And I mean that in the best possible way. The wave of meet-cute, social bonding and the eventual affair all come at a natural, effortless pace. In social conversations, Therese is the center of attention just as often as Carol. Their relationship is two-fold. They build off one another and they’re all the more stronger — and weaker — due to one another’s company. It's a testament to well-crafted, diligently low-key filmmaking, and something not seen often enough these days on the big screen. Oh great, now I'm starting to sound like someone from the '50s myself. But I digress.
It’s the kind of love story that’s familiar in all the right ways, and occasionally aloof enough to peak at your attention constantly. Mara excels brighter than ever as our meek, gentle lead; her emotions constantly restrained, but her feelings always felt. It’s one of the few times an actor of any caliber can effectively outshine Blanchett — who certainly holds her own as the outspoken, perspicacious title character, but makes way knowing full well this is almost entirely Mara's film. It’s the dichotomy between them, as expected, that makes them shine so bright, though. They build off one another, feed one another's insecurities and growth, without every outshining or overstating their fellow performer. They grow progressively over the course of the film, with Haynes taking every moment to let the subtly of their actions sweep over the encompassing sweep of their relationship.
Carol is the kind of grounded, well-to-do affair that makes you love the period drama in the first place and the type of story that makes you want to see people fall in love even in the simplest of ways. Everything comes both expectedly and elegantly, deftly painting a portrait both familiar and not, as we’re welcomed into this time and alongside these characters that we feel we’ve lived through, even if we've never have the chance to before. It’s as inviting as it is reserved. Much like Brooklyn earlier this past year, it lets you wash over the wonderful scenery, the positively divine look and feel of this time and place, while also letting us come effortlessly into the relationship shared at the forefront. It’s the best kind of time capsule piece, the kind that welcomes you into another era while not defining its existence solely on the account of being in a period only nostalgia and photographs truly remembers.
The power of simple storyline should never be forgotten. Even when Carol jumps into the melodramatic, or gets overcome with the heavy emotions that are expected in these kind of love stories, only rarely does it seem overproduced. At the center of its tale is a story so considerately, and tactfully, focused and well kept that it’s downright impossible not to get swept into the beauty and poise of it all. Shot in 16mm, there’s a glossy, timeless feel to the entire picture. It’s both so grand and so small in its presentation. As I’ll stress yet again, it’s downright impossible to not get swept into the love. It’s truly the work of a masterfully nuanced filmmaker; one that knows exactly what he wants to say, and has the skill and vision now to make it feel just right. Even its operatic tendencies are so elegantly handled that you can’t help but be taken in by them too, including when they're juxtapose the sensual subtlety found prior. It’s as gracefully handled a movie as you’ll see this year. Or really any other year, for that matter.
For when this sensitive, insightful movie hits it right, it’s as perfect as a movie can be. It could be a look, a gesture, a simple touch. It could simply be a turn of the camera at the right time. But when the emotion hits it right, it sings harmoniously with a pitch perfect vibrato. It’s touching, sweet, compassionate and sensational in just the exact measures it needs to be. Carol is a champion for heartfelt, enchanting cinema at its most sumptuous, and the kind of romance tale that’s sure to live throughout the ages.