Cate Blanchett had been attached to the sublime new love story Carol for several years before its scheduled Christmas Day release. Based on the 1952 romance novel by Patricia Highsmith (writing under the pseudonym Claire Morgan because of the story's lesbian content), the film bounced around in development circles, waiting for the right combination of talent and money to make it a reality.
Then Todd Haynes signed up. And everything began clicking together.
"It really took off like a freight train once Todd came on board," Blanchett says by phone. "I'm a huge Highsmith fan, and my first connection was the screenplay (adapted by the late novelist's friend, Phyllis Nagy). But I've read a lot of extraordinary screenplays that haven't necessarily become great films, because it depends who's looking down the lens at you."
This one became a great film. Like the best Haynes productions, it works on multiple levels at once.
As a study of forbidden love in the '50s, between a society matron (Blanchett) and a restless shop girl (Rooney Mara, also excellent), Carol showcases Haynes the former semiotics student, deconstructing and tinkering with genre. But there's nothing overly clever about the film's gut-punch love story, its delineation of desire, confusion, obsession and sacrifice in a time and place defined by heeding societal convention.
Haynes has looked down the lens at Blanchett before: She was the most outré and irresistible of the many Bob Dylans in Haynes' kaleidoscopic I'm Not There, for which she earned one of her six career Oscar nominations. (She's won twice, for The Aviator and Blue Jasmine).
The director and the actor both like taking risks. "I love Todd's elastic take on the world," Blanchett says. "You feel like there is no bridge he won't cross, visually and emotionally and psychologically, with a character and with a story." That does indeed sound like the guy who made his first splash with the experimental short "Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story," which uses Barbie and Ken dolls to tell the story of the troubled pop star.
But Haynes also knows how to surround himself with top-shelf collaborators, including cinematographer Edward Lachman (the opening long take of Carol is sumptuous), composer Carter Burwell and costume designer Sandy Powell. And, of course, actresses like Blanchett and Mara.
Blanchett is the perfect Haynes leading lady. Her Carol is a riff on the entire history of femmes fatale and Hollywood glamour, from the way she lights a cigarette to the tremble in her voice when the end of the line is near. But she's also a deeply sympathetic character hemmed in by those around her, save the new love of her life.
If you're not steeped in Haynes' reference points you can still fall for Carol. If you are, all the better.
