Carol (2015)

Todd Haynes' 2015 'Carol' stars Cate Blanchett and Rooney Mara as women in 1950s America who fall in love. Though beautiful, well made and well acted, I am very conflicted about this film.

There are many, many things I love about it: Haynes effortlessly creates a dreamlike quality through the visuals of the more romantic sequences, and the overall aesthetic of the film is incredibly gorgeous and well-rounded, from cinematography to set and costume design. This is not to say the film suffers from "style-over-substance" either, there are many subtleties within the film's dialogue that help to establish the themes and help to frame the narrative with its 1950s setting without beating the viewer over the head with nostalgia.

However, what the film seemed to lack in my opinion was enough characterisation. This is not the fault of either lead actress (and it is just the lead actresses, no other character has enough screen time for any actors to make an impression, other than Sarah Paulson who is fitting in her small role), but rather the intentions of Haynes, who chose to make a film which has more to its romantic tone and beautiful aesthetics (as previously mentioned) than its characters. When your lead protagonists are a woman that is naive and quiet, and a woman that is elusive and mysterious, you're not going to get an in depth character study - which is fine, but it just felt like something was missing for me, despite Blanchett and Mara playing their respective roles convincingly and with nuance.

So, while 'Carol' is just under two hours long, I wanted slightly more from it. However, I can tell this is what Haynes wanted from his film and I very much respect that, as it has a memorable look and feel, something many films hope to achieve and fail miserably. As I said, I'm conflicted, but leaning much more towards the positive.