CAROL

Image Source - IMDb
Released in January, 2016

You all know that I record movies and series on our Tata Sky set top box. Oh the excitement, when I spot a movie I’ve wanted to watch since ages or a movie that I’d missed watching in the theatre!

How often have we begun to watch a movie and then have had to skip it half way through? I find it very annoying when that happens because I have to start over again and by the time I get to the scene I had last watched, I would have lost interest.

I had watched the first half of Carol on a flight and post 50 minutes, our flight landed. This was in 2016. A few days ago when I was channel surfing, I came across a new movie channel ‘&Prive´HD’ that was showing some really nice movies and what do you know? There was Carol too.

Carol received 6 nominations at the Academy Awards (2016) including Best Actress (Cate Blanchett) and Best Supporting Actress (Rooney Mara).

Carol is based on the book ‘The Price of Salt’ (later republished as ‘Carol’in1990) by Patricia Highsmith.

The movie is set in the 1950s in America and covers the story of Carol (Cate Blanchett) and her relationship with Therese (Rooney Mara). Carol is estranged from her husband Harge (Kyle Chandler) and is on the verge of divorcing him. Carol is shown unable to cope with Harge’s way of life and his mother’s constant interference in their lives strengthens her resolve to separate from him.  Harge is unable to accept this and is still in love with his wife and blames Carol’s relationship with Abby (Sarah Paulson) for their separation. Abby is not only Carol’s best friend and godmother to Carol and Harge’s 4 year old daughter, Rindy but was also at one point of time Carol’s lover.

Therese is a shop assistant at a Departmental Store and that is where she sees Carol for the first time. Carol is besotted with Therese and comes up with excuses to keep meeting Therese. Therese too begins to have strong feelings for Carol, which her boyfriend Richard dismisses as a crush.

In the meantime, Harge gets wind of this “yet-to-blossom affair” and files for sole custody of their daughter on the grounds of a ‘morality clause’ and gets an injunction restraining Carol from seeing her daughter, in an attempt to coerce Carol to return to him. Carol resigns herself to this fate and plans a road trip with Therese until the court hearing.

The relationship between Carol and Therese progresses during this road trip until a telegram and an encounter with a fellow traveller send things spiralling for Carol. Carol leaves Therese and returns home where she agrees to see a psychotherapist to cure her off these “unnatural feelings”.

In the meanwhile, Therese who would click photographs as a hobby pursues it seriously and gets a job at The New York Times.

Will Carol get custody of her daughter, Rindy? Will she resign to her fate and get back with her husband or will she pursue the forbidden love affair?

It is easy to understand why Cate and Rooney were nominated for the Oscars while the movie wasn’t for Best Picture. The actors have done a wonderful job of portraying their respective characters. Cate as the older, unhappy woman who is always impeccably dressed and appears nonchalant but on a closer look reveals a frightened, confused woman with low self esteem. Carol constantly sets her hair and face, worried she’s not looking good enough. Rooney is the wistful, innocent little shop assistant who is clearly infatuated with Carol and her rich lifestyle but at the same time is not needy or parasitic. Carol describes Therese as a strange girl, flung out of space.

The movie was also nominated for cinematography and deservedly so.

The story is set in the 50s when homosexuality was still a taboo and looked down upon. The film is very subtle in its references and there is no garish display of feelings between the characters. The film has also captured the emotions and the feeling of resignation/helplessness that a woman in Carol’s shoes would have felt during that period. When Carol is not allowed to meet her daughter, she decides to go on a road trip by simply stating “what else am I going to do?” Carol needs the certificate of a psychotherapist to be deemed a mother capable of bringing up her daughter.  (We can let out a sigh of relief that that this was in the 50s, we have made much progress since then OR have we?)

I love observing the background and the objects in films that are set in different eras.  I particularly remember the ancient looking door handle of the fridge. The filmmakers have paid great attention to detail.

The film focuses on the most conflicted question we face in our lives - to follow ones heart or mind?

 I got a bit bored halfway through because I do not like films that have melancholia lurking in the background. The movie is a bit slow to my liking and this is not my favourite movie of Cate Blanchett.