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 Based on the book The Price of Salt, Carol is the latest film by indie filmmaker Todd Haynes. It's gotten glowing reviews and is a tour-de-force in basically every major category: film, directing, acting, cinematography, and music. Of note is that it's shot in grainy 16mm with a subdued color palette and backed by a wonderful soundtrack. I won't go much into the story, but it's basically a romance movie about characters played by Cate Blanchett and Rooney Mara. Kyle Chandler also has a meaty role, if, like me, you like the guy. And it's basically a Christmas movie! I saw it today and really enjoyed it. I had never seen any of Haynes's works but the aesthetics here are sublime. There is never an extraneous scene, with every frame judiciously and meticulously oriented to tell a story. Blanchett and Mara are also wonderful. Praise will center on Blanchett as usual, but Mara really embodies the softer character and exudes a vulnerability and naivety that makes the pairing work. In all, it's one of my favorite films of the year. Definitely one you should see. Slowly expanding to a wide release now.    It has a great teaser trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bF1YIF_FknI e: Can a mod edit it so the thread tag isn't shitpost 
Vegetable fucked around with this message at 07:01 on Dec 27, 2015 |
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Dec 27, 2015 06:09
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The criticisms against the film for being too cold or distant (mainly due to its aesthetics) are understandable, but I think this is more of a frustrated response than anything. It's so impeccably put together that it's like you want more than what's there, even if what's there is really, really good. I liked this movie. I wish I had a bit more of an emotional response to it, but the final shot(s) almost made me break down. Carol's line about not living against her own grain just echoes through it as they both decide to just not give any fucks and do what makes them happy.
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Dec 27, 2015 06:48
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It is a very fine watch with a Cate Blanchett performance for the ages. I want to see Far From Heaven again which I remember being a much more stylized experiment that essentially used 50s American film aesthetics to tell a similar story about homosexuality in the Eisenhower era. This film has a much more modern approach which I might approach as a criticism if it weren't made so well in its own fashion.
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Dec 27, 2015 13:38
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I was sort of underwhelmed by this. Everything was done well, certainly. I liked it. Yet nothing managed to go beyond my base expectations and make me feel any kind of passion or amazement. Even though I haven't read the book and tried to remain as spoiler-free as possible, it felt utterly predictable. In the last movie I saw, Sicario, there were some incredible shots and character moments that will always stand out to me, like the shot of the soldiers wading into the darkness of the horizon, or the final interaction between Emily Blunt and Benicio del Toro. But here there was nothing. Was I just going into this wrong?
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Jan 11, 2016 23:17
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If you don't like watching movies through windows then avoid this. It's probably his flattest film, stylistically, but it's flatly beautiful. The pan when Carol pulls out the pistol, the images intruding on the screen when the flashback starts and the final walk are the only dynamically shot moments and they're also the best in the film, I feel. I missed the verve that he normally brings to his movies, even though I appreciate why its relevant to this story that things be staid and slow. I'm not sure I appreciate the choices made with Mara's character though. Her being such an empty alien in combination with the stillness of the shots and the slowness of the story made the whole too alienated for me to love, despite recognising how objectively good every element was. It's probably straight-privilege speaking, but I also don't really know that politically this was a necessary movie to make. Whenever it tried to tackle the issue of homosexuality it fell pretty flat. Still looking forward to the Carrie Brownstein Spin-Off though.
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Jan 23, 2016 02:51
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