While it isn’t as ‘explosive’ a story as the book once claimed to be, you’ll find that it is a love story society (at the time) forbade. A love story nonetheless and a rather beautiful, tender one at that. Rather tastefully done, Mr. Haynes!

Underplay and restraint are the strengths of Carol. This is a film that stays clear of dramatisation. It kills you softly. Even in the end, the much-expected and pending Carol’s declaration of love to Therese happens in a blink-and-miss moment. The finesse and skill at work in Carol are spellbinding. This is a film you sit back and admire. Its fragile nature is evocative. Its beautiful women are enchanting. Its look at relationships and behaviour is mature and relevant. This is a film to savour.  

The film is brilliant, melancholic and tender, just like love. Watch Carol to see emotions flow beautifully on the big screen. Cate Blanchett and Rooney Mara deliver performances of a lifetime. There’s no reason to miss this one. 

The soul of the film is in the little details—the side glances and nervously tapped cigarettes and jazz records playing in the background—rather than the broader, more easily understood movements of plot and character. If you’re watching Carol, watch it closely. Not a lot happens, but an entire world is revealed.

In one moment it is an American road movie of lovers on the run like Bonnie and Clyde , the next an erotic thriller in motel rooms like Lolita and in another, a lesbian pulp fiction with spies and hidden cameras. It’s these hybrid genre elements of Highsmith’s text that director Todd Haynes incorporates so well that makes Carol an unexpected love story.

A showcase for the towering talents of Blanchett and Mara, Carol is a sumptuous watch. Blanchett’s coldness and occasional aloofness are offset against Mara’s portrayal of Therese, who is vulnerable at times, displaying controlled devotion at others, and occasionally wide-eyed at her own unfettered self-discovery.