Director: Todd Haynes
Year Released: 2015
Rating: 2.0
A (lower-class) shopgirl (Rooney Mara) is attracted to an (upper-class) married woman named Carol (Cate Blanchett), and the two go on an impromptu road-trip together ... where their liaison is recorded by a private investigator (and used against her in her divorce proceedings). One adjective I keep reading when people talk about this is "subtle," but this particular movie is anything but subtle: from the clunky metaphors (getting busted in Waterloo, the circular toy train) to the fervent glances to the 'coded' language to the liberal-baiting ('homosexuality' can be 'cured' by 'psychoanalysis') ... to me, it's actually quite obvious. The core relationship isn't exactly richly detailed - Mara and Blanchett have a sex scene together, but both, in general, are rather taciturn figures. The movie brings out its 'villain,' Blanchett's (understandably?) upset husband (Kyle Chandler), to bully her, but not much is revealed about the nature of his relationship with her (for example, did he always know she had leanings? was she ever fully honest with him? is she just being a sneak?).
