carol (d todd haynes, w. phyllis nagy, patricia highsmith)

Carol is a polished adaptation of Highsmith’s novel, which feels as though it ticks all the boxes without ever catching fire. The film is set in similar territory to Haynes’ earlier Far From Heaven, but it has a more muted feel. Like the earlier film, it deals with the crossing of taboos in post-war USA; but the colours are less vibrant and the melodrama is toned down. There are no obvious flaws, but this might be a flaw in itself: in spite of the transgressive nature of the relationship between Blanchett’s Carol and Mara’s Therese, it never feels as though they are running the same kind of risks that Moore and Haysbert ran in FFH. This could be down to the adaptation of the source material, Highsmith’s novel. The film opens with a self-evident homage to Brief Encounter, (albeit this is later revealed to be a tricksy device), but where the almost unseemly desperation of Trevor Howard’s passion shines through and propels that movie onto a heightened emotional plane, Blanchett always seems to hold things together in a polished performance which might have benefited from being more unhinged. When she threatens someone with a gun, it never seems likely that the gun will go off.