Carol Revisited: Cinematography, Soundtrack, and Gay Friends (Film Analysis)

I was a bit harsh on Carol back when I first reviewed it.  Keywords being a bit.

Note: This is my second review of Carol.  Here's my original review from 2015, written back when the film first released.

One of the most interesting things about revisiting films years later is seeing how my opinions have changed.  On my initial viewing, I failed to notice Carol’s subtly crafted cinematography and lovely soundtrack.  Take how the film effectively jumps from its present day to when its protagonist Therese (Rooney Mara) first met Carol (Cate Blanchett).  Rather than using a more traditional method of stating “Several Months Ago” in text at the screen’s bottom, the film craftily cuts from present Therese in a car, to a moment showing Carol in a store, back to Therese in the car.  The film has already shown present Therese having dinner with present Carol, so when it switches scenes to Therese working in a store and noticing Carol—the exact same moment it briefly cut to before—before interacting with her as a complete stranger, it’s made apparent the film has jumped back in time all without spelling it out.

Carol’s soundtrack in many ways captures its protagonist’s personality: subtle and gentle, a bit somber all around, yet flowing with passion and beauty.   I overlooked it on my initial viewing, but this time around—perhaps because I was viewing the film with headphones on—it stuck out to me.  I’ve further listened to the soundtrack on its own—while on my computer, walking my dog, or going on a run—and now find the entire thing to be a very lovely composition.

Carol is no masterpiece in storytelling, nor is it groundbreaking with its LBGT material—its novel The Price of Salt is on the latter part, but it was also published in 1952—but it is a cut above the average film and utilizes some rather uncommon LBGT elements in fiction.  In my original review, I praised Therese and Carol’s chemistry as the film’s strongest aspect.  Upon rewatch, however, it’s clear that Carol is the film’s show stealer—not just her scenes with Therese, but all interactions in general.  Cate Blanchett beautifully encapsulates the elegance, class, cynicism, and frustrations a woman of her position and time might showcase.  Add on the complexities of her sexuality, being a mother, and having both clash in an unfair situation where one must be given up for the other to continue, and the character is set up for an engaging story ripe with conflict and potent emotion.

While I stand by that most of Carol’s secondary characters serve only to advance the plot and/or the lead females’s arcs, I’ve developed a new-found appreciation for a few of them.  Carol’s close friendship with her ex-lover Abby (Sarah Paulson) is a strangely uncommon feature in LBGT fiction—far more than it should be.  You won’t often find stories where focus is given to a close, platonic friendship between two same-sex, same-gender, LBGT characters—off the top of my head, G.B.F. is the only other one I can recollect.  Yet Carol breaks the mold by giving Abby to Carol.  The two are childhood friends who began a relationship five years before Therese met Carol—the relationship fizzled out, yet the two remained best friends.  The scenes featuring only Carol and Abby were not originally in the novel—which is told primarily from Therese’s perspective—but were, instead, wisely added in to flesh out Carol’s character.  And it works.  The scenes between the two are touching, earnest conversations between friends, giving the audience a better look into Carol’s genuine, unfiltered self compared to her more waters-testing persona around Therese.

Carol’s soon-to-be ex-husband Harge (Kyle Chandler) also gains a new-found application for his role and presentation in the story.  Chandler effectively brings Harge to life as a flawed, frustrated man who, deep-down, has a heart.  Like Carol, Harge soundly represents a man of his time and position.  Over the years he and Carol grew distant—he blames Abby as the reason for their marriage’s decay despite Abby more likely being the result of him not giving Carol the passionate relationship she desires.  Harge likely feels emasculated by Carol’s affair, feeling the “great shame” a man of his time “should” by losing his wife to a woman.  Blinded by his own insecurities and shame, Harge lashes out at Carol by trying to gain full custody of their daughter despite still caring for Carol and feeling guilt over depriving his daughter of her mother.  Both Carol and I feel sympathy for Harge despite knowing his actions are wrong.  The complexity of both characters and situation makes for some of the film’s most powerful scenes—scenes that are, once again, only in the film version.

Unfortunately, the strengths Carol’s film adaptation give to the story also highlight its glaring weakness: Therese.  Compared to Carol’s fleshed out complexity, Therese is a rather blank slate.  This is an issue created when adapting book Therese to the big screen.  Being the novel’s (possibly unreliable) narrator, Therese gives the readers a firsthand look into her mindset and exactly what she’s thinking throughout the story.  In the film, the audience and characters (Carol blatantly states so on several occasions) are simply made to guess what Therese could be thinking as Mara—who gives an exceptional performance for the character she’s given—plays the character with a poker face and minimal dialogue.  While such mystique ultimately works to compliment Carol and add to the couple’s chemistry—as well as omitting some of novel Therese’s more…unhealthily obsessive thoughts (and that’s putting it lightly), turning the novel’s borderline unhealthy relationship between the women into a more positive couple—it also causes Carol’s dynamic, emotionally-driven character arc to completely overshadow the protagonist’s own journey.

The film adaptation’s minor changes, omissions, and additional scenes ultimately help to turn Patricia Highsmith’s novel into a better story as well as give its same-sex couple a healthier relationship.  That said, the story is far less impactful told in 2015 than when its novel released over sixty years before.  There’s a lot I overlooked when first viewing Carol—many positive, some negative.  It’s a good film with some great performances, a lovely soundtrack, well-crafted cinematography, and uncommon LBGT elements.  It would have been way more impactful and/or significant had it been made even half-a-decade earlier, but for when it was made, it’s still an effective piece of cinema.