Carol (2015)

Every once in a while, you see a series of trailers that convince you that a movie will be awesome. Sometimes this holds to be true, and sometimes it doesn’t. Sometimes you convince yourself that a film is going to be amazing based upon the trailers alone. And then, when the critics support your belief by giving the movie high praise, you head into that movie thinking that you are about to see something exceptional. I thought Todd Haynes (Far From Heaven, I’m Not There) was about to strike gold with Carol. He had the players. With apologies to Jennifer Lawrence, Cate Blanchett (Blue Jasmine, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button) is the current leading lady in Hollywood. When I first heard Blanchett’s soothing voice-over speaking to an unidentified character during a trailer with lots of drama, strife, and unpopular decisions with the leads, I could not help but be engrossed. I don’t know who created this trailer, but this individual should have directed Carol rather than Haynes because they brought more drama to a two-minute snippet than Haynes brought in two hours. This isn’t an exaggeration. The trailer is THAT good, and the movie is THAT disenchanting. Blanchett’s dramas are heavy, and she is at her absolute best when she plays a character who is lost in her confusion. So why wasn’t Carol the movie of the year? My belief was because Haynes and Blanchett blew it. The film lacked all of the drama that the preview led you to believe that it had. And Blanchett’s performance wasn’t so flat as much as it was confusing. I based many of the reviews of other lead actresses this year around how I perceived Blanchett would be in Carol (incidentally, I did the same with Lawrence for her performance in Joy). I completely jumped the gun with both of these actresses and prematurely included them in the same sentences as Brie Larson (Room), Carey Mulligan (Suffragette), and Saoirse Ronan (Brooklyn). While I do believe Blanchett will get a nomination (primarily based on name recognition), it would be a travesty if she were to win over Larson or Ronan.

Carol does not diminish my feelings for Blanchett. She’s not one of my ten favorite actresses, but she is one of the ten best. I put more of this movie’s disappointment on Haynes. I was a big fan of Far From Heaven, though, admittedly, I enjoyed it more the first time I saw it. He doesn’t direct many movies, and I was happy to see him return to the same genre (1950’s New York) for Carol that he did for Far From Heaven. Unfortunately, lightning doesn’t strike twice. I will compare this movie to the most recent film I reviewed (The Danish Girl), which was also a period piece (1920 Copenhagen) and dealt with a somewhat similar topic (something that was not understood and accepted by society). There are numerous similarities between these two movies, and while I gave The Danish Girl a pretty good score

Carol is a mess from the very beginning. While The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo was Rooney Mara’s (The Social Network, Her) coming out party, this movie further establishes her as a credible actress beyond this recognizable role. She deserves a Best Supporting Actress Academy Award nomination. For me, these two are at the forefront, and everyone else is not even close. I would give it to Mara but would not be disappointed if it went to Vikander. Vikander and Eddie Redmayne made The Danish Girl a better movie than it otherwise was. Mara might have saved Carol from being an utter disaster.

Let’s set the scene. Carol (Blanchett) is unhappily married to Harge (Kyle Chandler – The Wolf of Wall Street, television’s Friday Night Lights). They have a young daughter who is almost more of a prop than she is a human being. The parents love her, but we never get to know young Rindy (Sadie Heim), which is purposeful. The story is based around adult relationships, and too much of Rindy would detract from this. It was an interesting way to do it, and I appreciated it. We learn that Carol is seeking a divorce from Harge and that this is something that the husband does not want. From the preview, we see Harge as a loving man who doesn’t want to lose his wife to anybody and is willing to do whatever it takes to keep his family together. The trailer portrays Harge as a kind and loving man who is trapped by circumstance. While this is somewhat true, Harge is much more multi-dimensional than the trailer leads you to believe. Specifically, Carol is attracted to women, and in 1950’s America, this is looked at by the general public as immoral. While she’s had at least one relationship with a woman before (known to everyone, including Harge), she seems to show an understated interest in a much younger sales clerk named Therese (Mara) when she is at a toy store looking to buy a doll for her daughter for Christmas. There is an instant mutual attraction between the two that is irrefutable. Or is it? The lust at first site element is evident in Therese than it is in Carol. Was that purposeful, or was it accidental? In real life, Blanchett is 15 years older than Mara. We see a lot of relationship movies where one character is more seasoned than their love interest, but we often see it in films in which characters are gay women? I cannot think of many.

In any case, this is where Haynes did a terrible job. There is no wooing of the characters. I understand that you have to be secretive if you are in a committed relationship, and I understand that there were certain pressures in denying your sexual identity in 1950. But that doesn’t change how we watch people fall in love. I couldn’t even tell IF they were falling in love. One day, they meet for lunch, and then Carol invites Therese for a Christmas getaway, but there was no overt or even underlying flirting. It’s almost like being starstruck by a much older crush and clinging on to every word and action directed towards you by that crush. But this is where the movie also fails. Therese never seems to get jealous. She is almost at Carol’s beck and call, but there is no genuine feeling from either woman.

I mentioned in a previous post that I thought The Danish Girl failed because it wasn’t emotional enough. If that movie didn’t bring any emotion, it’s not hard to gather how I felt about Carol. At least The Danish Girl was based on a true story. Movies based on a true story get the benefit of the doubt over movies that are not because movies that do not have far fewer restrictions. So there I am, paying close attention to the relationships between all of these characters and feeling nothing. Why doesn’t Therese get sad or upset when Carol tells her that she needs to go back to her husband because that is the only way she will be in his daughter’s life? Why does it seem like she just accepts it? Why don’t we feel like Harge is spiraling out of control when the wife he loves shows no interest in him but does to a young lady 15 years her junior? Why doesn’t it feel like Carol is torn with the gut-wrenching decisions of only being able to have her daughter in her life or Therese? Why does the movie build and build and build and then sprint to the finish line? What sort of resolution is there other than Haynes making us wonder what happens next, if anything, between Carol and Therese.

There were missed opportunities in Carol. First, there are the obvious ones. I think the excellent movie An Education starring a young 16-year-old (Carey Mulligan) and an older 30-year-old potential suitor (Peter Sarsgaard) hits on a couple of them. What I expected to be a true love story in Carol was anything but due in large part to Carol’s aloofness and Haynes’s inability to do anything noteworthy with her. It’s almost as if he expected Blanchett to do all of the work once she signed on. Her character needed direction, though. We needed to know what she was thinking and to experience what she felt. We didn’t get that, and ultimately the movie failed as a result.

Something else that I found interesting between Far From Heaven and Carol was that Far From Heaven was a movie set in the 1950s that felt like the 1950s. It had a less elegant score that didn’t quite capture the acquiesce of the film. The cuts between scenes in Far From Heaven were just that. Cuts. There were no transitions. While I appreciated it because it did feel like it was shot in the 1950s, it might feel like it was cheaply made to some. Carol did not have that feeling. Carol had a good score (though, again, it was much more evident and appreciated in the trailer than in the movie) and scenes that flowed freely from one to the next.

With only a handful of movies left for me to see this year (The Revenant, Joy, 45 Years, Anomalisa, Concussion, Trumbo), Carol has the potential to be my most disappointing movie of 2015, according to my expectations. While it was not one of the worst movies I saw, it was no further drop-off than this movie. Other contenders included The Danish Girl, Everest, Bridge of Spies, and No Escape, but Carol must be at the top of this list. I expected it to be a top-five film for the year. At best, it will sneak into my top 20. Movies like Carol and Joy were supposed to narrow the gap if not solidify 2015 as a better year than 2010 (the best year for film in my life). Unfortunately, I can safely say that that will not happen regardless of how awesome The Revenant happens to be.

There is an audience out there that will like this. Don’t let the trailer fool you. It portrays not the movie you will receive. If you’re looking for a film that will stick with you long after you’ve seen it, search elsewhere. Carol is not that movie.

Plot 7.5/10
Character Development 6/10
Character Chemistry 6.5/10
Acting 7.5/10
Screenplay 7.5/10
Directing 5/10
Cinematography 10/10
Sound 8/10
Hook and Reel 7.5/10
Universal Relevance 9/10
74.5%

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