Possibly the current front-runner to win the best film prize at the Oscars, Todd Haynes’ Carol is a beautifully delivered and involving love story. Set in New York in the 1950’s, Carol is Carol Aird, played by Cate Blanchett, a high society married woman who has had lesbian relationships in the past. Carol falls for Therese (Roony Mara) a much younger woman who works in a department store.
Being tipped to win her third Oscar, Blanchett is great as the experienced, worldly but fragile Carol. However, it is Mara who steals the show. Her performance as the initially subservient and besotted Therese who you see growing up as the film progresses is absolutely terrific. Haynes directs at a leisurely pace, but the film never becomes boring, and it has a wonderful, subtle, ending. The one negative aspect for me was the overly grainy photography by Edward Lachman that I found too distracting.
Rating: 8 out of 10