Carol (2015, R)

While this film wasn’t the knockout I was anticipating, it’s incredibly well-made and definitely worth watching.  All the actors do fine work in this beautifully-directed period piece, which immerses you in the quietly-repressed world they inhabit.

Therese, an intelligent but undistinguished girl living in 1950s New York, doesn’t know what’s about to begin when a chance encounter turns her on her head.  At the department store where she works, Therese is drawn to one of her customers, the alluring, soon-to-be divorcee Carol.  Carol is older, wealthier, and surer of what she wants.  Meanwhile, Carol is just as taken with young, artless Therese.  The two start taking small, unspoken steps toward one another but are thrown together by an unexpected hardship that besets Carol.

I had a tricky time pinning this film down.  It looks and sounds gorgeous from beginning to end – director Todd Haynes (who I know best from Velvet Goldmine) lets the essence of the period soak into every frame.  For me, though, it’s less successful on an emotional level.  The story is an intimate one, but for the most part, the direction doesn’t feel all that intimate.  This is a movie that feels like it’s holding you at arm’s length, which made it difficult for me to connect with the characters.

However, I think much of this is probably intentional.  In this time and place, among Carol’s class, women weren’t free to love in the open, and so much of the connection between Carol and Therese is understated, implied, both characters stopping just shy of where it seems they want to go.  In a situation like that, it’s vital for a film to convey the desire simmering underneath the polite phrases and carefully-arranged distance, and at times, it does so wonderfully.  This element comes through at different points in the film, always to good effect, but I feel it most strongly in a scene where both women are in the car and Therese is stealing glances at Carol.  We see only pieces of them in extreme close-ups – lips, hands, eyes – and it creates the sense that Therese is just skimming the surface of Carol because she’s not yet sure how to go further.  Unfortunately, there are stretches of the movie where this tug between inward and outward appearances isn’t very apparent, which makes the film feel kind of remote.

This distance carries over into the acting as well, although I think both (Oscar-nominated) leading ladies do what they can to reach us with the characters despite that.  As Carol, Cate Blanchett probably has the tougher job, since Carol is less a character in her own right and more a reflection of how Therese perceives her.  In scenes with her daughter, her (impending) ex-husband, and a friend/former lover, Carol feels better-realized than she does with Therese, where her characterization can sometimes get lost in being “mysterious and alluring Carol.”  Rooney Mara does well with Therese; she’s quiet and sensitive without being milquetoast, and she nicely portrays Therese’s gradual education and awakening.  Kyle Chandler is highly effective in the unflattering role of Carol’s husband, and Sarah Paulson, playing Carol’s best friend, lends an earnest, down-to-earth air to every scene she’s in.

Warnings

Drinking, smoking, language, thematic elements, and sexual content (including one sex scene.)

Top Five Songs: A Little Night Music

A Little Night Music has an exquisite score.  It’s meticulous, sumptuous, heartfelt, clever, and funny, and it’s one that pops up to say, “Hey, what about me?” any time I start thinking another Sondheim score is my favorite (not that I’m saying it is my favorite, just that it keeps the competition fierce.)  If I could only have five songs from this show, here’s what I’d choose.

(Pictures are from assorted productions.)

“Now” – The whole “Now / Later / Soon” sequence is fabulous, but you can’t beat Fredrik’s intro.  This fussy, pedantic number, which weighs the pros and cons of ravishing his young wife, is a riot.  It establishes Fredrik and his situation with Anne in a marvelously entertaining manner.

Best line:  “In view of her penchant / For something romantic, / De Sade is too trenchant / And Dickens too frantic, / And Stendahl would ruin / The plan of attack, / As there isn’t much blue in / ‘The Red and the Black.’”

“In Praise of Women” – Carl-Magnus might be my favorite character; this self-important, deluded philanderer is so amusing.  It’s fun to hear his mental gymnastics as he tries to quell his suspicions that his mistress is cheating on him, and I love his condescending “praise of women.”

Best line:  “God knows the foolishness about them, / But if one had to live without them, / The world would surely be a poorer, / If purer, / Place.”

“Every Day a Little Death” – Anne and Charlotte make a good team, since Anne is so naïve and Charlotte is so cynical.  I really like Anne’s wake-up call here as Charlotte opens her eyes to the reality of men, marriage, and infidelity.  The round is gorgeous, and Charlotte’s internal struggle between love and scorn is terrifically compelling.

Best line:  “He smiles sweetly, / Strokes my hair, / Says he misses me. / I would murder him right there, / But first I die.”

“Send in the Clowns” – Come on, I had to do this one!  Overexposure aside, it really is an excellent song, even more so in context.  Desiree’s quiet, wistful regret is beautifully heartbreaking, and I like the way she compares her ease onstage with her tumultuous real life.

Best line:  “Isn’t it rich? / Isn’t it queer, / Losing my timing this late / In my career? / And where are the clowns? / There ought to be clowns. / Well, maybe next year.”

“The Glamorous Life (Film Version)” – A bit of a cheat maybe, since this version isn’t in the show, but it’s so amazing that I couldn’t leave it out.  I adore everything about Fredrika’s ode to her famous mother, especially the stiff-upper-lip way she insists she’s okay with Desiree touring, gallivanting, and never being home.  The melody is so sweet and lovely, and the lyrics get me every time.

Best line:  “Ordinary mothers needn’t meet committees, / But ordinary mothers don’t get keys to cities. / No, ordinary mothers merely see their children all year, / Which is nothing – I hear. / But it does interfere / With the glamorous…”

Relationship Spotlight: Emma Woodhouse & George Knightley (Emma)

How do you like that – this is the third of seven major Jane Austen romances I’ve reviewed, and I’ve yet to get around to Lizzie and Darcy.  That just speaks to how many fantastic relationships she cultivated in her works, and Emma/Knightley is one I’ve always appreciated.  Not as fun as Catherine/Tilney or as searing as Anne/Wentworth, perhaps, but of all of Austen’s pairings, these may be the two who do one another the most good.

I really like how often Austen’s romances show the characters as friends before they’re lovers.  Emma and Knightley are a particularly great example – their families have been close since before Emma was born, and Knightley has always been a fixture in her life as a friend and neighbor.  There’s attraction, of course – buried so deep that neither is aware of it for most of the book – but more than that, there’s a sense of companionship, of familiarity.  These are two people who can speak the absolute truth with one another.

Not that Emma is always crazy about that.  She spends a good portion of the story as a doted-upon, well-meaning but misguided young woman, and there aren’t many who can recognize her faults like Knightley.  She resents his chiding on the grounds that he doesn’t pay enough attention to important things like position and perception, but she values his opinion more than she can say:  Knightley’s words can get under her skin like no one else’s, can prick at her conscious and make her realize how shallow or foolish or insensitive she’s been.  For Knightley’s part, Emma challenges him, and it’s more than just her stubbornness or pride propelling her.  More than once, she opens his eyes to something he’d dismissed or failed to recognize, and he’s a better person for it.

This facet of their relationship is good for them both, but especially for Emma.  She’s spent much of her life being the little lady of the house, and she’s both used to flattery and unused to being denied.  Essentially, she’s been raised to think the sun rises and sets by her flashes of brilliance, and though she’s a bright woman well positioned to do good in her community, this indulgence threatens to spoil her.  With Knightley there to remind her she’s as fallible as anyone, she can mature and learn to be her best self.

It’s a little thing, but I also love the way Knightly demonstrates so much care toward Emma’s father, a fussbudget hypochondriac whom she clearly adores.  Unlike many in town, who desire Mr. Woodhouse’s society but fail to consider his delicacies or try to accommodate him, Knightley seeks to put him at ease in potentially stressful situations.  He regularly visits, knowing Mr. Woodhouse enjoys company but rarely ventures out, and when an excursion is held at Knightley’s estate, he prepares a selection of knickknacks and curiosities to occupy Mr. Woodhouse while the others are out, all from the comfort of Knightley’s finest chair.  That scene, to me, tells so much about Knightley, and it’s obvious that Emma could never be with a man who doesn’t regard her father like she does.  It’s funny; maybe it’s just my aceness talking, but stuff like that makes me root for a relationship much faster than heat or chemistry.  They can making longing eyes at one another as long as they want, but if they connect on a personal level and cherish the same loved ones, values, or even hobbies?  I am allover that.

Relationship Spotlight: Capt. Frederick Wentworth & Anne Elliot (Persuasion)

 

Anne and Wentworth are unusual for a Jane Austen couple in that they’re two people who have a romantic history beforethe start of the story.  It’s actually the only time we see such a dynamic in one of her books’ main pairings.  A girl-meets-boy scenario is far more frequent, and we also get a couple of gradual couples who’ve known one another for a good chunk of their lives before developing romantic feelings for each other.  But exes?  That’s something different for Austen.  It serves them well, though.  Anne and Wentworth aren’t my favorite Austen pairing (that would be Catherine and Mr. Tilney from Northanger Abbey followed pretty closely by Emma and Mr. Knightley from Emma,) but they’re perhaps the most interesting to me.  Theirs is a sadder, more wistful story; it’s tinged with a regret that many scholars link to Austen herself, especially since this book was written toward the end of her life.

 

But I digress.  Anne and Wentworth’s story together begins when they’re both young, deeply in love, and mostly heedless to their different statuses – Anne is the daughter of a wealthy baronet, while Wentworth’s position in society is decidedly lower.  Unfortunately for both, they’re not yet grown in the ways of the world.  Lady Russell, Anna’s older and shrewder friend, convinces her to go against her heart and break the “imprudent” engagement she’s formed with Wentworth.  Chastened and despondent, Wentworth retreats to nurse his wounds.  Fast forward nearly a decade.  The more advantageous matches Anne’s family and Lady Russell anticipated for her haven’t panned out, and while Wentworth has risen in means and social standing through his military service, Anne’s father has spent the Elliots out of house and home.  It’s under wildly different, humbled circumstances that Anne meets Wentworth again, and he loudly telegraphs his satisfaction with young women who, chiefly, aren’t Anne.

 

It’s such a messy, painful situation.  Anne is now 27 and regarded as a faded beauty (due equally to her age, her continued maidhood, and her unhappiness born of lost love,) and Wentworth is celebrated, successful, and sought after.  She can hardly bear for him to see her so diminished – I don’t really mean her reduced fortunes, but her overall feeling of being past the point of anyone’s desirability – and he seems to parade his flirtations in front of her.  It’s a reflection of how hurt he continues to feel about what happened between them and, unbeknownst perhaps to both of them, it’s a sign of how much she still weighs on his mind.

 

With this inauspicious foundation, their story becomes a matter of knowing and understanding one another anew, slowly peeling back their own presumptions, and lowering their defenses.  It’s about proving to each other how much they’ve grown for the better and how much the other’s pull on their heart remains unchanged.  It’s a story of second chances, not just of regaining a love thought lost, but of reopening entire chapters of life thought closed.  Because of this, Anne and Wentworth have some of the most searing, gripping scenes of any Austen couple.  The letter-writing scene, as it’s known among Austenites, was, for me, actual edge-of-my-seat reading.  There’s the letter itself, obviously – a positively gorgeous moment in literature – but I also adore Anne’s discussion with Capt. Harville that happens in the same chapter, her defense against the alleged fickleness of women.  “All the privilege I claim for my own sex (it is not a very enviable one:  you need not covet it),” she tells him, “is that of loving longest, when existence or when hope is gone!”  If you’ve ever wondered what a human heart looks like, read Anne’s words in that chapter, followed by Wentworth’s.