Carol (2015), R, ★★★1/2

Cate Blanchett and Rooney Mara.

It's the most wonderful time...wait, whoa, whoa, whoa...hold on. It's not a traditional Christmas movie that is titled Carol. No, it is basically a story that is relatable, yet again, to today's society because same-sex couples are becoming more common with the every-day world and the common society. However, personality traits and some past memories become the attributes and behavioral traits that can drive a person, man or woman, to ponder how he/she identify oneself and how he/she identify oneself with the opposite sex or the same sex. It begins anew a very complicated character study as to how people, the audience, identify the character. Is he or she still a good or bad person underneath all that controversial identity barriers? It is a drama exploring a relationship between a young woman and older woman going through a divorce and peaks with great performances and such astounding direction that you feel sympathy and happiness for the characters in the end.

In the early 1950s in New York (boy, there have been some movies set in past Brooklyn that make a difference in the story), Therese Belivet (Rooney Mara) is an aspiring photographer who is now a temporary shopgirl working at a Manhattan department store at the toy section trying to get through life. She is approached by an older woman named Carol Aird (Cate Blanchett) who wants to purchase a model train set for her daughter, recommended by Therese. As Carol leaves, she accidentally leaves her gloves on her counter and mails it to her at her home in New Jersey.

Meanwhile, Carol is struggling through a difficult divorce with her husband, Harge (Kyle Chandler), and is struggling to maintain custody of her daughter. Because she returned the gloves to Carol, she invites Therese to lunch and they strike a friendship between them two as Therese gets closer as she photographs Carol buying a Christmas tree. Harge suspects their friendship and whether or not their friendship is a lot closer and meaningful than realized because Carol had an earlier relationship with another woman. He leaves on a business trip to Florida and takes their daughter with them.

Carol's and Therese's relationship starts to develop more and become stronger as Richard (Jake Lacy), her boyfriend, cheated on Therese with two other women, causing a break-up. He replies that Carol will be rid of her soon. As they take a road trip together in Chicago to escape their stress, they both have a mutual impact and feelings for each other as they confess their love to each other and they both make love for the first time in a motel room. It drives more anger and hostility into most of the characters and the movie tries to connect all of the characters' emotions into one basket as it is about to explode.

May I have this dance?

All in all, it is a beautiful love story between two characters who have flaws in their life that make them show their emotions to each other and to us as they communicate both in dialogue and also in body behavior and silence. Both of them have sexual tension with each other but they both have sexual confusion with their opposing boyfriends. Edward Lachman, the cinematography, shoots the whole film with such bravura that it almost felt like visual poetry and I have been impressed how many films have that such prowess in filmmaking styles.

There are two award-caliber performances that will guarantee them Oscar nominations. Cate Blanchett is now one of the best actresses of our generation and I think one of my favorite actresses because she camouflages into her characters quite well even in the settings. Her character is vulnerable in her position in terms of balancing the struggle with her domestic life and her past life with the present life of a relationship with another young woman. Rooney Mara is flawless as she plays a confused character with such ambiguous sexual tendencies towards Carol and her boyfriend that we cannot predict what her demise will be in the end. Kyle Chandler is excellent as the husband and Jake Lacy is quite surprisingly good as the boyfriend, although, the boyfriend is a bit one-dimensional at times.

Director Todd Haynes has quite masterfully directed this film with ease, posterity and emotional ambiguity that at times, it lacks some narrative in the storytelling because it is mostly an examination of a lesbian relationship unfolding and therefore, there's not as much drama in the first half of the film. Plus, I felt that the dialogue was a bit showy and self-indulgent at times where it becomes a 1950s soap opera. But, it is very tiny criticisms compared to two spellbinding performances in a quite moving and complex movie that contains such detail in its cinematography, art direction and costumer design. It is like you are back in history studying this. This movie will be a topic at Oscar time for sure but I'm not sure if I'm that bandwagon quite yet. It is in consideration for maybe the bottom of the top 10, but no doubt, it will be an honorable mention.

***1/2