Over the years, New York City has played host to a great many love stories in film including the likes of last year’s critically-acclaimed Love is Strange and Woody Allen’s beloved Annie Hall. Now, director Todd Haynes is taking a stab at Big Apple romance with this year’s Carol, which sees The Social Network‘s Rooney Mara fall under the spell of Cate Blanchett’s titular, affluent lady in 1950s NYC.
Lifted from the pages of Patricia Highsmith’s adorned novel The Price of Salt, the story has Mara and Blanchett’s characters come from very different socio-economic backgrounds. The former, Mara, will assume the role of Therese Belivet, a clerk simply trying to make ends meet when she meets Blanchett’s titular woman, who is trapped in a warped, loveless relationship. Defying convention, the pair soon find themselves in the throes of a passionate love affair, and it isn’t long before Carol’s husband (Kyle Chandler) learns the truth.
Set in a time period where homosexuals were unfairly bastardized, Haynes’ drama is ripe with potential. Arriving on the heels of a successful festival circuit, Rooney Mara’s raw performance has been lauded by critics, who also praised her naturalistic on-screen chemistry with Cate Blanchett.
Due for a release on November 20, Carol also stars Kyle Chandler, Sarah Paulson, Jake Lacy, and Cory Michael Smith.
In an adaptation of Patricia Highsmith’s seminal novel The Price of Salt, CAROL follows two women from very different backgrounds who find themselves in an unexpected love affair in 1950s New York. As conventional norms of the time challenge their undeniable attraction, an honest story emerges to reveal the resilience of the heart in the face of change. A young woman in her 20s, Therese Belivet (Rooney Mara), is a clerk working in a Manhattan department store and dreaming of a more fulfilling life when she meets Carol (Cate Blanchett), an alluring woman trapped in a loveless, convenient marriage. As an immediate connection sparks between them, the innocence of their first encounter dims and their connection deepens. While Carol breaks free from the confines of marriage, her husband (Kyle Chandler) begins to question her competence as a mother as her involvement with Therese and close relationship with her best friend Abby (Sarah Paulson) come to light.
