Review of Cate Blanchett's CAROL
CAROL, directed by Todd Haynes and starring Cate Blanchett was the prestige closing film of the Marrakesh Film Festival, on Dec. 12, 2015 Haynes is a respected Hollywood director noted for meticulous period detail such as in his 2002 masterpiece, "Far From Heaven" which starred Julianne Moore in one of her greatest roles, also set in the fifties. This film, set in the same period with another great actress, looks like a clone of the earlier opus, but the cloning just doesn't take.
While both the film and Cate look great all the way, unlike "Heaven" in which the supporting roles were also fully fleshed out and memorable (notably, her closet gay husband played by Dennis Quaid in his best role ever) here they are flat as pancakes and, worst of all, the central same-sex love relationship between Cate and void younger actress Rooney Mara has no tension, chemistry, reality, or anything else, which basically leaves the whole picture null and void -- reduced basically to an extended modelling session for Cate Blanchett, who looks better than ever draped in furs and perfectly becoming period apparel from beginning to end, not to mention a perfect blonde coiffure to enclose her perfect features.
In the film Cate, who is obviously wealthy, drives a classy fifties Packard (at the time thought of as a more stately answer to the high end Cadillac) and fifties cars buffs will have a field day identifying the various other vintage models enriching the background throughout in a picture that doesn't have enough foreground, in terms of an engaging story or characters, to distract them from counting cars. Richly photographed and most decorously detailed but overall, one long bore. Even the potentially strong social question of whether a devoted mother can be deprived of the custody of her children because of lesbian tendencies sort of floats by without raising much of a rumpous.
As a followup to her Oscar awarded outing in Woody Allen's insufferable "Blue Jasmine" two years ago, this is another waste of Ms. Blanchett's enormous talent and screen charisma. Can't blame her though for accepting leading roles in films by prestige directors like Woody and Todd -- just too bad -- and not her fault -- that films like this turn out to be the biggest turkeys of the directors in question.
