Carol (2015)

Director Todd Haynes lesbian counter part to his tale of repression and male homosexual love in the 1950's Far From Heaven. Carol is based on the 1952 romance novel The Price of  Salt, published under the pseudonym of Claire Morgan by the author Patricia Highsmith, best known for her Tom Ripley novels and Strangers on a Train. The story concerns a middle aged woman named Carol (Cate Blanchett) who is going through a divorce and child custody fight, and the relationship she strikes up with a poor, sincere but ambitious shop girl played by Rooney Mara. The two leads give strong performances, both doing a fine job of keeping up the balance of implied and overt images and conveying the interact subtlety which was no doubt so central to the establishing of this kind of relationship in that time and place, the film being principally set in the Manhattan and New Jersey of December 1952. The supporting cast is strong as well and includes Sarah Paulson as Carol's long time friend Abby, and Kyle Chandler as her husband Harge. The production does an impressive job of conveying the period setting on a fairly limited budget. Obviously this film is not to all tastes, but I thought it was an empathetic and for the most part tasteful exploration of forbidden love. ***1/2