movie review carol

Advertisement

Supported by

Review: ‘Carol’ Explores the Sweet Science of Magnetism

• Share full article

By A.O. Scott

• Nov. 19, 2015

Mutual attraction may be central to our notion of love, but it is a curiously rare occurrence in art, which tends to split desire into subject and object. Poetry traces a vector from lover to beloved. ( “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?” ) In painting and sculpture, the eye of the beholder lingers on the face and body of the beheld. Students of film are schooled in the erotic power of the gaze, and readers of romance fiction know the seductions of the first-person narrative and the free indirect style, which concentrate lust and longing within a single consciousness. ( “Reader, I married him.” )

Patricia Highsmith’s 1952 novel, “The Price of Salt,” published under the pseudonym Claire Morgan, uses these conventional methods to tell the story of what was at the time a scandalously unconventional love. That story, which begins in Manhattan just before Christmas, is related from the perspective of Therese Belivet, a young theatrical set designer in New York who falls for an older suburban housewife named Carol Aird. Therese’s infatuation with Carol is immediate and total. Carol’s feelings, while equally intense, are more elusive, partly because the reader experiences them at second hand, from Therese’s point of view.

In bringing this book to the screen in his gorgeous new movie “ Carol ,” Todd Haynes has, as filmmakers will, changed a few details, characters and plot points. (Therese is now an aspiring photographer, though still temporarily employed at the doll counter of a department store.) But Mr. Haynes and the screenwriter, Phyllis Nagy, have also done something more radical. In Highsmith’s prose, desire is a one-way street. For Mr. Haynes, it’s a two-way mirror. At once ardent and analytical, cerebral and swooning, “Carol” is a study in human magnetism, in the physics and optics of eros. With sparse dialogue and restrained drama, the film is a symphony of angles and glances, of colors and shadows. It gives emotional and philosophical weight to what might be a perfectly banal question: What do these women see each in each other?

And when other people look at Carol and Therese (or through them or past them), what do they see? In the opening scene — which establishes most of what follows as a flashback — we accompany an anonymous, hat-and-coated fellow into a hotel bar, where he spots the two women (played by Cate Blanchett and Rooney Mara) at a nearby table. The meaning of their togetherness is invisible to this guy (he’s an acquaintance of Therese’s) and, for the moment, opaque to us. Later, when the scene is repeated with the camera in a different position, the current of feeling passing between Carol and Therese as they chat over their teacups is so strong that the air around them seems to vibrate.

Anatomy of a Scene | ‘Carol'

Todd haynes narrates a sequence from the film..

By then, we are in on their secret, and accustomed to seeing them, in public places, hidden in plain sight, cloaked in unspoken assumptions that are at once painful and protective. We also know the extent of their intimacy, since we’ve watched it blossom from a chance encounter and a series of cautious conversations into a headlong, heedless affair. In this film’s version of the 1950s, nobody necessarily suspects that two women out for coffee or cocktails or a drive in the country might in fact be lovers.

When such suspicion does arise, the consequences can be unfathomably cruel. Shame, exposure and ostracism lurk in every stranger’s glance. A rumor can ruin a life. Terror hovers in the air along with yearning, but Mr. Haynes honors Highsmith’s decision to tell a tale of same-sex love stripped of pathology or tragedy.

There is plenty of melodrama, though, and more than a touch of film noir. “Carol” filters a relatively happy romance through layers of anxiety, dread and psychological suspense. Mr. Haynes, a scholar of mid- and late-20th-century cinematic styles and sexual attitudes, is both a connoisseur and a theorist of female suffering. In early shorts like “Superstar” and “Dottie Gets Spanked” as well as in mature features like “Safe,” “Far From Heaven” and “Mildred Pierce,” his attention has often gravitated toward women in danger and in distress.

At first glance, the distraught diva in this picture can only be Carol, who is played with almost metaphysical movie-star blondness by Ms. Blanchett. Arrayed in full-cut coats and accessorized in bright, saturated colors — an early shot lingers over the pulsating orange hues of her fingernails, her scarf and her hat — Carol is postwar glamour incarnate.

The camera — Therese’s camera as well as Mr. Haynes’s — searches out the pain and wisdom behind the Brancusi contours of Ms. Blanchett’s face. Carol is richer and more experienced than Therese, and also more weighed down by compromises and responsibilities. Carol, in the middle of divorcing her bewildered husband, Harge (Kyle Chandler), has a young daughter and what used to be called a past. A sexual relationship with an old friend named Abby (Sarah Paulson) contributed to the breakup of her marriage, and Carol’s romance with Therese adds further complication at a tricky time in her life.

Movie Review: ‘Carol’

The times critic a. o. scott reviews “carol.”.

Not that Therese’s situation is all that simple. A nice guy named Richard (Jake Lacy), who calls her Terry, wants to marry her, or at least take her to Europe. Another nice guy, Dannie (John Magaro), also has his eye on her. She is patient with them, as Carol tries to be with Harge, and they are puzzled by her lack of interest.

Carol lights up Therese’s world with her elegance and self-possession, her dazzling and mysterious allure. But Therese has mysteries of her own. Carol (in a line taken directly from the book) likens her to an alien, a creature “flung from space,” and Ms. Mara’s face has a spooky, otherworldly quality. Dressed in mismatched plaids, including a dumpy yellow tam-o’-shanter — a notable contrast to Carol’s compact and deep-hued pillbox hats — Therese can look elfin and childlike. It’s hard to tell whether her quiet manner bespeaks timidity or terrifying self-possession.

There are obvious asymmetries to be discovered in the relationship between a penniless young bohemian and a wealthy, full-grown matron, but Ms. Mara refuses to be the ingénue in the arrangement. She is vulnerable and hungry, timid and ferocious, predator and prey. And the movie, with its gauzy, grainy images (shot by the incomparable Edward Lachman), ultimately depends on the clarity of Therese’s vision, on her ability to discover who she is and to choose a course of action that expresses that identity.

“Carol,” like virtually every other movie Mr. Haynes has directed, is a period film, almost fetishistically precise in its recreation of the look and sound of the past. Like other historical fiction, it measures the distance between then and now. In 1952, the candid and sympathetic depiction of gay life was shocking; now it is commonplace. “Carol” might have been content to be an archaeology of the closet, or a pitying backward glance at the mores of a less enlightened time.

But it is much more than that. Mr. Haynes is a historian of feelings, of the unspoken and invisible traces of the libido. In one scene, Carol helps Therese apply perfume, instructing her to spray it only on her pulse points, where the heat and movement of her blood will activate the scent. The images in “Carol” are cool and elusive, but they also pulsate with life.

“Carol” is rated R (Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian). Sex and cigarettes. Running time: 1 hour 58 minutes.

Explore More in TV and Movies

Not sure what to watch next we can help..

Even before his new film “Civil War” was released, the writer-director Alex Garland faced controversy over his vision of a divided America with Texas and California as allies .

Theda Hammel’s directorial debut, “Stress Positions,” a comedy about millennials weathering the early days of the pandemic , will ask audiences to return to a time that many people would rather forget.

“Fallout,” TV’s latest big-ticket video game adaptation, takes a satirical, self-aware approach to the End Times .

“Sasquatch Sunset” follows the creatures as they go about their lives. We had so many questions. The film’s cast and crew had answers .

If you are overwhelmed by the endless options, don’t despair — we put together the best offerings   on Netflix , Max , Disney+ , Amazon Prime  and Hulu  to make choosing your next binge a little easier.

Sign up for our Watching newsletter  to get recommendations on the best films and TV shows to stream and watch, delivered to your inbox.

• Newsletters

Site search

• Israel-Hamas war
• 2024 election
• Solar eclipse
• Supreme Court
• All explainers
• Future Perfect

Filed under:

• Carol is the most beautiful movie of the year

This swooning love story charts a relationship between two women in 1950s New York.

Share this story

• Share this on Facebook
• Share this on Twitter
• Share this on Reddit
• Share All sharing options

Share All sharing options for: Carol is the most beautiful movie of the year

It wasn't until the final shot of Carol that I realized how tightly the film — which hits theaters November 20 — had wrapped me in its web.

I knew I was interested. I knew I was moved. And I knew I was invested in the characters' story. But I didn't know how enraptured I'd become until director Todd Haynes 's camera caught just the slightest flicker of movement across a woman's face, her lips curling into the faintest hint of a smile.

And then I stumbled out of the theater, a little woozy and gobsmacked by both the power of what I'd seen and its restrained grace. It felt like I was surfacing after a long time underwater, as if I had swum to the surface too swiftly and developed the bends.

I love movies. I look for the best in everything I see — even the stinkers. But it's rare for one to send me so completely over the moon.

Yet here was Carol , and it had me eating out of its hand.

Carol is a moving love story that doubles as something very specific

Carol centers on two women who meet in early 1950s New York, fall in love on a road trip out West (to nowhere in particular), and upon their return must deal with the fallout of being two women in love in early 1950s New York — where a word to define what we think of as "lesbian" barely even exists.

The title character is Carol Aird ( Cate Blanchett ), a New Jersey housewife whose bewildered husband knows of her relationships with women but thinks he can still make her love him by endlessly reminding her of propriety and her duties as a wife and mother. But she finds herself entranced by Therese Belivet ( Rooney Mara ), a young shopgirl who's clearly never pursued a relationship with another woman before.

Their love isn't just driven by the usual physical attraction and discovery of compatibility, though that's present. It's also driven by a kind of obsession, as Carol leaves her gloves at Therese's desk, clearly hoping the younger woman might return them. Their courtship plays out as a kind of extended ritual, circling closer and closer to actual physical contact, like an approximation of the coded same-sex relationships and desires that existed in films of the era Carol depicts.

What Haynes — who previously visited the 1950s in Far From Heaven and a slightly earlier era in HBO's Mildred Pierce miniseries — does so well is frame images so that we can see how both Carol and Therese have become the only thing the other cares about, even if they're not quite aware of it yet. He filmed the movie on Super 16 mm film, which gives it a slightly gauzy, fuzzy feeling that beautifully approximates those first few days of falling in love and feeling like you might never stop tumbling.

But he also illustrates how possible it is for those in LGBTQ relationships to feel isolated, alone on an island that's separate from even the one that honeymooning couples tend to discover themselves upon. In the world of Carol , same-sex relationships are carried out via clandestine code and signal. For almost the entire film, Therese isn't even out to herself, until she suddenly is, and the world reorients itself around her.

The film is based on a hugely important novel

Carol is based on Patricia Highsmith's The Price of Salt , published in 1952 under the pseudonym Claire Morgan. The book, which was a massive success, became famous as the one novel of its time to feature lesbians who weren't afflicted with a psychiatric disorder. Indeed, its fame stemmed from the fact that it had a happy ending. (Whether that ending remained intact in the film, I will not say.)

Screenwriter Phyllis Nagy — a longtime confidant of Highsmith — has adapted the novel to the screen in a fashion that captures some of the purple dialogue and prose common to the era but just as often sets it aside for safe small talk, beneath which burbles deep currents of longing.

Haynes and his technical crew capture this undertow through careful choices in framing and production design. Spot color in Sandy Powell's costumes highlight just what (and whom) we're supposed to be looking at. Edward Lachman 's cinematography ensures that every tiny moment of physical interaction between Carol and Therese is perfectly proportioned for its import to the action of the story. Carter Burwell 's score swells exactly when it needs to swell.

In particular, pay attention to the way Haynes and company utilize the motif of hands moving along a human body. Carol's hands drift along Therese's shoulders as Therese plays piano. In later scenes, she lowers them slightly, touching Therese's elbow or arm. At all times, the camera follows these moments in close-up, reading a hand's touch like it might otherwise read a minute shift in facial expression in a more traditional shot.

By the time the camera drifts over the pair's naked bodies, entwined in sleep, we've been trained to notice these things. The shoulder touch and the naked embrace hold the same level of power, because they are equally welcomed by these women and equally forbidden by the world they live in.

The acting is terrific, too

It's probably no surprise to hear that Blanchett is tremendous in Carol . She's perhaps the finest living actor of the moment, able to transform any role, no matter how rotten the movie, into something living and breathing and vital. And yet Carol Aird might be her finest performance. Blanchett constructs a woman so accustomed to living in these kinds of codes that she's become a statue that emotes only when she has no other choice.

Mara's work is no less revelatory, and she's constantly revealing new ways that Therese's seeming naiveté is a false front she uses to distract from her true aims. Sarah Paulson only appears in a few key scenes as a former lover of Carol's who has now become her closest friend, but she presents a brittle strength of her own.

Kyle Chandler (as Carol's husband) and Jake Lacy (as Therese's boyfriend) are well-cast, as both can evoke a kind of sympathy for how little they understand why they can never be with the women they love, while also slipping, at a moment's notice, into a representation of the society that would rather keep the two lovers apart. (Chandler, in particular, is crucial for this — you have to believe he would never physically hurt Carol but would destroy her in other ways.)

What's key, though, is that Carol isn't some movie about overcoming societal misconceptions about lesbians in 1950s New York. There are hints of the kind of damage Carol and Therese might suffer if their relationship became public, and there are moments when characters threaten to do just that, but the film never pushes these ideas to their breaking points.

It is, instead, a love story — one in which the word "lesbian" is never once uttered. This is not a film about a political movement or cause, except obliquely. It is, instead, a movie about a revolution of the self, a story about a young woman who starts the film unable to say who she is and ends it able to say that she is many things — a friend, a photographer, and someone who loved deeply another woman named Carol.

Carol is playing in limited release. It will expand throughout the country in the weeks to come.

Will you support Vox today?

We believe that everyone deserves to understand the world that they live in. That kind of knowledge helps create better citizens, neighbors, friends, parents, and stewards of this planet. Producing deeply researched, explanatory journalism takes resources. You can support this mission by making a financial gift to Vox today. Will you join us?

We accept credit card, Apple Pay, and Google Pay. You can also contribute via

In This Stream

More from emily todd vanderwerff.

• The past 11 presidencies, explained by the TV shows that defined them
• Netflix and Amazon go head to head in streaming’s first blockbuster battle

Next Up In Culture

Sign up for the newsletter today, explained.

Understand the world with a daily explainer plus the most compelling stories of the day.

Thanks for signing up!

Check your inbox for a welcome email.

Oops. Something went wrong. Please enter a valid email and try again.

You probably shouldn’t panic about measles — yet

Biden’s student loan forgiveness plan, explained

A hack nearly gained access to millions of computers. Here’s what we should learn from this.

College enrollment is up. The financial aid mess could bring it crashing down.

“Civil War” has little to say about America — but a lot to say about war

The Chinese backlash over Netflix’s 3 Body Problem, explained

• International edition
• Australia edition
• Europe edition

Carol review – Cate Blanchett and Rooney Mara are dynamite

Todd Haynes’s flawless adaptation of Patricia Highsmith’s novel is a ravishing tour de force

T his superb adaptation of Patricia Highsmith’s 1952 novel The Price of Salt doesn’t put a foot wrong. From Phyllis Nagy ’s alluringly uncluttered script to Cate Blanchett’s sturdily tremulous performance as a society woman with everything to lose, this brilliantly captures the thrills, tears and fears of forbidden love. As the young shutterbug finding her true identity amid an atmosphere of perversely festive paranoia, Rooney Mara brings a touch of both frost and warmth to the screen, while Ed Lachman’s richly textured Super 16mm photography digs deep into the mid-century milieu.

But it is director Todd Haynes , oozing the confidence that defined 2002’s Far From Heaven , who is the real magician here, combining the subversive clout of his 1991 Jean Genet-inspired Poison with the flawlessly empathetic character study of 1995’s Safe and the swooning period detail of 1998’s Velvet Goldmine . In many respects, Carol is the culmination of Haynes’s career, one that dates back to the still-suppressed late-1980s examination of anorexia, Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story , and now comes full circle with this very different tale of a woman out of time.

Conceived in a fevered state (“it flowed from my pen as from nowhere”) and jointly inspired by Highsmith’s passion for an elegant blonde woman she once served in a Manhattan department store around Christmas 1948 and the custody battles of a former partner, The Price of Salt was originally published under the pseudonym Claire Morgan for fear that it would adversely affect the Strangers on a Train writer’s reputation. With winning restraint, Haynes captures both the intimacy and illicitness of Highsmith’s writing, from the Brief Encounter opening (private liaisons interrupted in public), through Douglas Sirk -inflected melodrama (domestic pain behind a handsome facade) to grace notes of film noir (love as a crime scene, a handgun in a motel suitcase).

We first meet the star-crossed couple by accident, Blanchett’s Carol Aird bidding an apparently casual farewell to Mara’s Therese Belivet, a fleeting hand-upon-the-shoulder the only hint of something more. As the pair go their separate ways, Therese gazes back in time through the streaked windows of a car (glass, smoke and crowds constantly come between them – along with age, status and societal norms) to their secret history.

We see the talismanic first meeting in which Carol attempts to buy a doll for her daughter, but shop girl Therese suggests a train set instead. We discover the leather gloves left (deliberately?) on the counter, which will lead Therese to the upmarket home of her customer, and out on a road trip west toward frontiers new and boundaries uncrossed. And we witness the marital estrangement that has left husband Harge (Kyle Chandler) impotently clinging to any vestigial control of his wife while Carol finds herself torn between the daughter she will always love and the man she never could.

“We’re not ugly people,” declares Carol in one particularly raw exchange and yet the battle in which these two are locked, involving private detectives and public scandal, is anything but pretty. Only the unearthly beauty of Therese’s presence makes Carol’s situation bearable, prompting her to conclude that she is an “angel… flung out of space”.

Having earned a best actress Oscar last year for her latterday Blanche DuBois in Woody Allen’s Blue Jasmine , Blanchett (for whom Carol has long been a passion project) reconfirms her status as one of modern cinema’s most facially balletic actresses; the symphony of emotions that play out upon her painted visage range from sly seduction to piercing grief without need of a raised voice. For Mara, it’s all about the eyes, her gaze turning from inquisitive to impassioned, even as she retains a cool portrait-picture poise. Together, the two are dynamite, the sparks between them amplified by Sandy Powell’s superb costume design, which adds an angular edge to the evolving interpersonal dynamics. So central are Powell’s subtle dress codes that in moments of nakedness it is not the presence of flesh but the absence of costume that startles.

The real genius of Haynes’s movie is that it is as resistant to labels as its director. Liberated by the prospect of working from someone else’s script (a first), Haynes has conjured a polymorphous kaleidoscope that can be read variously as a ravishing romance, sly psychodrama or arch sociopolitical satire. That it can be all and none of these things at once is typical of a director who once used Barbie dolls to pierce to the very heart of pop culture , and now bridges the divide between arthouse experimentation and mainstream adoration with ease. Bravo!

• Mark Kermode's film of the week
• Drama films
• Cate Blanchett
• Todd Haynes
• Rooney Mara

Comments (…)

Most viewed.

• Skip to main content
• Keyboard shortcuts for audio player

Movie Reviews

Movie review: 'carol'.

Kenneth Turan

Director Todd Haynes has adopted a 1952 Patricia Highsmith novel about a divorcing woman who meets a young shop assistant. It's a love story that stars Cate Blanchett and Rooney Mara.

RENEE MONTAGNE, HOST:

The movie "Carol" opens today. It's a love story. Film critic Kenneth Turan says, it ranks among the best of the genre.

KENNETH TURAN, BYLINE: "Carol" is a love story between two women. It's set at a time and place when that relationship was beyond taboo. But those specifics fade and what remains are the feelings and emotions that all the best movie love stories create. And make no mistake, "Carol" belongs in that group. "Carol" is impeccably acted by Cate Blanchett and Rooney Mara, as the women in question. It's been made under the total control of director Todd Haynes. He's created a serious melodrama about the geometry of desire that engages emotions completely. The film opens during the 1951 Christmas season with young Therese Belivet, played by Mara, working as a sales girl in the toy section of a New York department store. Enter, truly like a vision out of vogue, ultimate sophisticate, Carol Aird, played by Blanchett. She's searching for a Christmas present for her 4-year-old daughter. The two lock eyes across the bustling sales floor and nothing will ever be the same again.

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "CAROL")

CATE BLANCHETT: (As Carol) Where'd you learn so much about train sets?

ROONEY MARA: (As Therese) Oh, I read - too much probably.

BLANCHETT: (As Carol) It's refreshing.

TURAN: Carol buys the train set for the child but forgets her gloves. After Therese mails them back, Carol invites her to a get-acquainted lunch.

BLANCHETT: (As Carol) And your first name?

MARA: (As Therese) Therese.

BLANCHETT: (As Carol) Therese. Not Teresa?

MARA: (As Therese) No.

BLANCHETT: (As Carol) Therese Belivet. It's lovely.

MARA: (As Therese) And yours?

BLANCHETT: (As Carol) Carol.

MARA: (As Therese) Carol.

TURAN: Things soon get more complicated for Carol. And she decides, as fictional people are want to do, to take a drive West. She asks Therese if she wants to go as well. And the resulting trip has powerful repercussions that complicate and confound both their lives.

MONTAGNE: Film critic Kenneth Turan reviews movies for MORNING EDITION and the Los Angeles Times.

Copyright © 2015 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.

Log in or sign up for Rotten Tomatoes

Trouble logging in?

By continuing, you agree to the Privacy Policy and the Terms and Policies , and to receive email from the Fandango Media Brands .

By creating an account, you agree to the Privacy Policy and the Terms and Policies , and to receive email from Rotten Tomatoes and to receive email from the Fandango Media Brands .

By creating an account, you agree to the Privacy Policy and the Terms and Policies , and to receive email from Rotten Tomatoes.

Email not verified

Let's keep in touch.

Sign up for the Rotten Tomatoes newsletter to get weekly updates on:

• Upcoming Movies and TV shows
• Trivia & Rotten Tomatoes Podcast
• Media News + More

By clicking "Sign Me Up," you are agreeing to receive occasional emails and communications from Fandango Media (Fandango, Vudu, and Rotten Tomatoes) and consenting to Fandango's Privacy Policy and Terms and Policies . Please allow 10 business days for your account to reflect your preferences.

OK, got it!

Movies / TV

No results found.

• What's the Tomatometer®?
• Login/signup

Movies in theaters

• Opening this week
• Top box office
• Coming soon to theaters
• Certified fresh movies

Movies at home

• Fandango at Home
• Netflix streaming
• Prime Video
• Most popular streaming movies
• What to Watch New

Certified fresh picks

• Civil War Link to Civil War
• Monkey Man Link to Monkey Man
• The First Omen Link to The First Omen

New TV Tonight

• Fallout: Season 1
• Chucky: Season 3
• Mr Bates vs The Post Office: Season 1
• Baby Reindeer: Season 1
• Franklin: Season 1
• Dora: Season 1
• Good Times: Season 1
• Beacon 23: Season 2

Most Popular TV on RT

• Ripley: Season 1
• 3 Body Problem: Season 1
• Parasyte: The Grey: Season 1
• Shōgun: Season 1
• Sugar: Season 1
• We Were the Lucky Ones: Season 1
• X-Men '97: Season 1
• A Gentleman in Moscow: Season 1
• Best TV Shows
• Most Popular TV
• TV & Streaming News

Certified fresh pick

• Fallout Link to Fallout
• All-Time Lists
• Binge Guide
• Comics on TV
• Five Favorite Films
• Video Interviews
• Weekend Box Office
• Weekly Ketchup
• What to Watch

Best Movies of 2024: Best New Movies to Watch Now

25 Most Popular TV Shows Right Now: What to Watch on Streaming

What to Watch: In Theaters and On Streaming

Awards Tour

Fallout : What It Gets Right, and What It Gets Wrong

CinemaCon 2024: Day 3 – Disney Previews Deadpool & Wolverine , Moana 2 , Alien: Romulus , and More

• Trending on RT
• Play Movie Trivia

Carol Reviews

A beautifully made film and moving love story

Full Review | Jan 8, 2024

As premature as it might be to say in a review for an initial theatrical run, Carol more than earns the right of comparison to Brief Encounter in terms of quality. Frankly, it’s one of the new great romantic films.

Full Review | Nov 15, 2023

Todd Haynes delves into the noir-kissed world of Patricia Highsmith...

Full Review | Aug 26, 2023

These are fractions of instances that straight people can’t see, but inside, we feel our hearts pounding and our minds racing with possibility. That’s what Carol—and the holiday season for that matter—are all about.

Full Review | Dec 5, 2022

... An extraordinary film in every sense. [Full review in Spanish]

Full Review | Original Score: 4.5/5 | Dec 2, 2022

Carol is one of the better film adaptions in recent memory and has truly withstood the test of time.

Full Review | Sep 26, 2022

A masterpiece of melancholy longing that manages to miraculously avoid being devastatingly tragic or dramatic.

Full Review | Original Score: 9/10 | Jun 30, 2022

Haynes, an experimental filmmaker whose dramatic work may seem straightforward yet is anything but, knows just how to fold his audience into a moment.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/4 | Apr 23, 2022

Todd Haynes and Phyllis Nagy created a compelling, extraordinary tale about love and its meanders in life. The time passes, but Carol remains the most critical romantic story with a happy ending. For me, it will always mean a lot.

Full Review | Original Score: A | Feb 13, 2022

Poised, elegant and desperately moving, it's yet another tour de force turn from an actress who has clearly defined herself as the best of her generation.

Full Review | Sep 29, 2021

Veering toward moments of heightened drama, Haynes shows measured restraint in maintaining the focus that essentially this is a story about love, rather than heading into cheaper plot devices.

Full Review | Original Score: 5/5 | Sep 2, 2021

A gorgeous, complicated and absolutely captivating film.

Full Review | Original Score: A | Aug 10, 2021

The second time I watched Carol all I did was cry. I cried over the scarves and the love-seats, the brooches and Rooney's pinned-up bob, the way Cate Blanchett unfolds her body like angel's wings

Full Review | Jul 2, 2021

In the end, the décor, costumes and settings are little more than a backdrop for an affair that does not follow "a prescribed path."

Full Review | Feb 26, 2021

A wonderful and all-too-rare film.

Full Review | Feb 9, 2021

An entertaining endeavor and a poignant message about love's ability to overcome adversity.

Full Review | Original Score: 10/10 | Dec 4, 2020

Unreasonably chilly and isolating, the central romance never feels believable, but Blanchett's titular performance is a wonderful portrait of manipulation.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Oct 8, 2020

The fragility of the characters and their courtship makes for a compelling tale. There are several layers to the film, and it softly transfixes you, making it a must-watch.

Full Review | Jul 30, 2020

There comes a point where the melodramatic idyll wears me out, despite the excellent performances from Blanchett and Mara. [Full review in Spanish]

Full Review | Original Score: 6/10 | Jun 26, 2020

A good film will tell you everything you need to know. A great film will show you.

Full Review | Feb 13, 2020

Film Review: ‘Carol’

Cate Blanchett and Rooney Mara give brilliant performances in Todd Haynes' exquisitely drawn adaptation of Patricia Highsmith's 1950s lesbian love story.

By Justin Chang

Justin Chang

• Film Review: ‘A Hologram for the King’ 8 years ago
• Cannes: A Look at the Official Selection, by the Numbers 8 years ago
• Film Review: ‘Captain America: Civil War’ 8 years ago

With his groundbreaking examinations of queer identity and his fondness for the heyday of classic melodrama, Todd Haynes seemed almost too perfect a choice to film an adaptation of “The Price of Salt,” Patricia Highsmith ’s ahead-of-its-time 1952 novel about two women who boldly defied the stifling social conformity of the era. Still, even high expectations don’t quite prepare you for the startling impact of “ Carol ,” an exquisitely drawn, deeply felt love story that teases out every shadow and nuance of its characters’ inner lives with supreme intelligence, breathtaking poise and filmmaking craft of the most sophisticated yet accessible order. An obvious companion piece to Haynes’ “Far From Heaven” and “Mildred Pierce,” and no less painstaking in its intricate re-creation of a mid-20th-century American milieu, the Weinstein Co. drama (set for a Dec. 18 release) should have little trouble translating critical plaudits, especially for Cate Blanchett ’s incandescent lead performance, into significant year-end attention.

As a rare prestige picture centered around a homosexual relationship set during a much less tolerant era, “Carol” stands to generate perhaps an even warmer audience embrace than “Brokeback Mountain” did 10 years earlier, hopefully absent much of the snickering embarrassment that soured the otherwise widespread acclaim for Ang Lee’s classic. The obvious differences between the two films go beyond the mere fact that “Carol” centers around two women in an urbane ’50s New York setting; unlike “Brokeback,” Haynes’ film is not framed as tragedy. (To preserve the purity of the experience, read no further.) Remaining largely faithful to Highsmith’s ending, which thrilled and shocked readers at the time with its suggestion that forbidden desires need not be forever sublimated to the status quo, “Carol” ends on a triumphant note of emotional clarity that, for all its frozen-in-time period restraint, speaks stirringly and unmistakably to the present moment. It’s a thoroughly modern movie skillfully disguised, at least up to a point, as a Production Code-era artifact.

Popular on Variety

Deviating from the novel early on with a prologue set apparently long after the two central characters have become involved, Phyllis Nagy’s expertly condensed screenplay flashes back to a moment just before their fateful first meeting. A projection-booth glimpse of “Sunset Blvd.” and a proliferation of Santa hats set the scene as Christmas 1950. Quiet, mousy young Therese Belivet ( Rooney Mara ) leads a drab, seemingly ordinary existence, holding down a temporary job in the doll section at a Manhattan department store. (As always, Haynes works wonders with dolls.) Into this world of soulless, manufactured luxury and overflowing display cases (realized to perfection by ace production designer Judy Becker) steps Carol Aird (Blanchett), an elegant socialite who’s looking for a Christmas gift to buy for her young daughter, Rindy (played by Sadie and Kennedy Heim).

The moment when Therese first sets eyes on this perfectly coiffed creature is a classic, unadorned love-at-first-sight moment, and after their brief transaction, Carol absent-mindedly leaves her gloves on the counter, giving Therese the excuse she needs to secure a second meeting. The almost subterranean delicacy of Haynes’ direction is on full display when the two women have lunch at a nearby restaurant, in a sequence where Blanchett’s soft, husky voice and Mara’s cool yet vulnerable one seem to faintly caress each other, their every anxious pause and upward/downward glance larded with unspoken desire. One of the film’s more remarkable achievements is that, despite their obvious differences in class and background, Therese and Carol seem to ease themselves (and the audience) so quickly and naturally into a bond that they have no interest in defining, or even really discussing — a choice that works not only for an era when their love dared not speak its name, but also for Haynes’ faith in the power of the medium to achieve an eloquence beyond words.

Shooting on Super 16 — and finding, as ever, a precise and idiosyncratic cinematic language that will best convey their story’s meaning — Haynes and his regular d.p., Ed Lachman, achieve a realist look and texture that’s worlds away from the lustrous sheen and pristine Technicolor surfaces of “Far From Heaven.” Absent any need for Sirkian quote marks, the less brightly stylized images in “Carol” more closely resemble those of “Mildred Pierce,” but the palette here seems even more deliberately muted — all dingy greens and nicotine browns, bathed in noirish shadows that seem to provide a cover under which the characters can at last reveal their true selves. Frequently filming his heroines through half-concealed doorways and rain-pelted windows, and employing medium and long shots as well as closeups, Haynes uses these obscuring, distancing visual devices with an unerring sense of thematic purpose, slowly pulling us into a veiled world where scandalous truths are hidden in plain sight, and only a privileged (or cursed) few can see them clearly.

Those individuals, pointedly, include almost none of the men in “Carol” — not Richard (Jake Lacy), the nice, clueless young suitor who expects the indifferent Therese to marry him, and certainly not Carol’s soon-to-be-ex husband, Harge (a terrific Kyle Chandler), who’s desperately trying to salvage their marriage even though he knows all too well the nature of his wife’s desires. While Harge urges her to join him and Rindy at his parents’ home for the holidays — not the last time he will exploit his daughter for the purposes of emotional blackmail — Carol opts to spend Christmas with Therese instead and proposes a road trip. During this blissful getaway, marked by shared hotel suites and hours behind the wheel, the two women will at once cement their bond — in a scene of frank, unabashed eroticism and tenderness that shatters the movie’s patina of restraint — and then see it cruelly torn away from them.

While “The Price of Salt” isn’t a work of crime fiction (the presence of a gun in Carol’s suitcase notwithstanding), its final stretch is as replete with undercurrents of suspense and violence as any of Highsmith’s Tom Ripley novels, and Nagy’s adaptation allows the machinations to play out to ever more absorbing effect. Elsewhere, the scribe makes smart adjustments to the text, such as having Therese aspire to a career in photography (rather than set design), her black-and-white practice shots of Carol adding yet another pointed visual layer to Haynes’ aesthetic of desire. Notably streamlined here is the role of Carol’s best friend and former lover, Abby (Sarah Paulson, superb), whose delightfully bitchy confrontations with Therese in the novel have been largely omitted here; still, like every other element, Abby’s presence snaps into the larger construct with gemlike precision.

Mara is as no less mesmerizing here than she was in “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo” (in which she played a woman far less reserved about her nontraditional sexual appetites), and she seems born to the role of someone who seems at once knowing and naive, guarded yet unafraid to pursue what she really wants in life. Some of the film’s most moving moments find Mara simply peering out at the great nocturnal expanse of Manhattan — nicely played by Cincinnati locations, and shot, at times, in an almost Wong Kar-wai-esque neon blur — while Carter Burwell’s haunting score, with its two-step progressions and occasional repetitions, seems an almost perfect distillation of her longing.

Yet “Carol” ultimately belongs to Blanchett, and rightly so. Not for nothing did the filmmakers opt to go with the other title under which “The Price of Salt” is sometimes published; whereas the novel was told from Therese’s point of view, the film offers a more balanced dual perspective, allowing us an unfiltered and hugely sympathetic glimpse into Carol’s world of smothering decorum and forced family cheer. As searing as Blanchett was in her Oscar-winning turn in “Blue Jasmine,” she arguably achieves something even deeper here by acting in a much quieter, more underplayed register. Looking a vision in Sandy Powell’s costumes (the color red is wielded with particular expertise), Blanchett fully inhabits the role of a woman who turns out to be much tougher and wiser than those luxurious outer garments would suggest. As a study in the way beautiful surfaces can simultaneously conceal and expose deeper meanings, the actress’s performance represents an all-too-fitting centerpiece for this magnificently realized movie.

Reviewed at Cannes Film Festival (competing), May 16, 2015. MPAA Rating: R. Running time: 118 MIN.

• Production: (U.K.) A Weinstein Co. (in U.S.) release of a Film4 presentation, in association with Studiocanal, Hanway Films, Goldcrest, Dirty Films, InFilm, of a Karlsen/Woolley/Number 9 Flms/Killer Films production, in association with Larkhark Films Limited. Produced by Elizabeth Karlsen, Stephen Woolley, Christine Vachon. Executive producers, Tessa Ross, Dorothy Berwin, Thorsten Schumacher, Bob Weinstein, Harvey Weinstein, Danny Perkins, Cate Blanchett, Andrew Upton, Robert Jolliffe. Co-producer, Gwen Bialic.
• Crew: Directed by Todd Haynes. Screenplay, Phyllis Nagy, based on the novel “The Price of Salt” by Patricia Highsmith. Camera (color, Super 16), Ed Lachman; editor, Affonso Goncalves; music, Carter Burwell; music supervisor, Randall Poster; production designer, Judy Becker; art director, Jesse Rosenthal; set decorator, Heather Loeffler; costume designer, Sandy Powell; sound, Geoff Maxwell; sound designer, Leslie Shatz; special effects coordinator, Kenneth Coulman Jr.; visual effects producer, Chris Haney; visual effects, Goldcrest, the Mill; assistant director, Jesse Nye; casting, Laura Rosenthal.
• With: Cate Blanchett, Rooney Mara, Sarah Paulson, Jake Lacy, John Magaro, Cory Michael Smith, Carrie Brownstein, Kevin Crowley, Nik Pajic, Kyle Chandler.

More From Our Brands

Jane fonda on politicians backed by big oil: ‘vote them out’, kanye west is now facing an $18 million loss on his tadao ando-designed malibu house, splash and sportico partner for $100k masters tiers contest, be tough on dirt but gentle on your body with the best soaps for sensitive skin, tvline items: legacies’ matthew davis joins nbc pilot, lifetime’s nicole brown simpson docuseries and more, verify it's you, please log in.

• The Weinstein Company

Summary Set in 1950s New York, two women from very different backgrounds find themselves in the throes of love. 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, convenie ... Read More

Directed By : Todd Haynes

Written By : Phyllis Nagy, Patricia Highsmith

Where to Watch

Cate Blanchett

Rooney Mara

Therese belivet.

Sarah Paulson

Abby gerhard.

Kyle Chandler

Richard Semco

John Magaro

Dannie mcelroy.

Cory Michael Smith

Tommy tucker, kevin crowley, fred haymes, phil mcelroy.

Carrie Brownstein

Genevieve cantrell, trent rowland, jennifer aird, michael haney, wendy lardin, jeanette harrison, pamela evans haynes, roberta walls, greg violand, michael joseph thomas ward, shipping clerk, mckinley motel manager, critic reviews.

• All Reviews
• Positive Reviews
• Mixed Reviews
• Negative Reviews

User Reviews

Related movies.

Dekalog (1988)

Citizen Kane

Three Colors: Red

The Godfather

Tokyo Story

The Conformist

The Leopard (re-release)

Lawrence of Arabia (re-release)

Fanny and Alexander (re-release)

Touch of Evil

Army of Shadows

City Lights

Intolerance

The Rules of the Game

Seven Samurai

The Wild Bunch

Au hasard Balthazar

Pépé le Moko (re-release)

Related news.

2024 Movie Release Calendar

Jason dietz.

Find release dates for every movie coming to theaters, VOD, and streaming throughout 2024 and beyond, updated weekly.

April Movie Preview (2024)

Keith kimbell.

The month ahead will bring new films from Alex Garland, Luca Guadagnino, Dev Patel, and more. To help you plan your moviegoing options, our editors have selected the most notable films releasing in April 2024, listed in alphabetical order.

DVD/Blu-ray Releases: New & Upcoming

Find a list of new movie and TV releases on DVD and Blu-ray (updated weekly) as well as a calendar of upcoming releases on home video.

SXSW 2024 Recap: Best and Worst Films

Which films impressed reviewers during the 2024 edition of the South by Southwest Film & TV Festival? We recap the reactions of critics to all of this year's major SXSW premieres and tell you which titles won the festival's major awards.

Every Denis Villeneuve Movie, Ranked

Before French-Canadian filmmaker Denis Villeneuve earned the attention of sci-fi fans with excellent Dune and Blade Runner films, he made a name for himself with crime thrillers and indie dramas. Here, we rank every one of his films to date from worst to best by Metascore.

‘Carol’ Review: Cate Blanchett Radiates Passion in Todd Haynes’ Near-Perfect Masterpiece

Sexuality and repression clash in gorgeous, aching adaptation of Patricia Highsmith’s groundbreaking lesbian novel

“Carol” fits the mold of director Todd Haynes ‘ extraordinary work, in that it calls to mind other great films (“Brief Encounter,” “Brokeback Mountain,” even Haynes’ own “Far From Heaven”) while standing alone as its own unique creation.

In the tradition of cineaste auteurs as far-ranging as Scorsese, Tarantino and Almodóvar, Haynes draws on a deep well of film knowledge.

But he filters it through his own sensibility, whether he’s exploring his pop culture obsessions ( Bob Dylan in “I’m Not There,” Karen Carpenter in “Superstar”) or bringing a queer perspective to eras when such stories were never told on the big screen.

It’s that latter strategy that makes “Carol” such a fascinating artifact: It’s got classic Hollywood style and pace but it’s also a film that’s destined to become a staple of queer studies courses, not only for the lesbian romance at its core but also for the way Haynes takes a subtext and makes it text. He builds a film on the furtive glances and secretive language that gays and lesbians in this country had to rely upon for so long to find each other and to express themselves.

When mink-swathed Carol ( Cate Blanchett ) and shopgirl Therese ( Rooney Mara ) first meet at the toy counter at the department store where Therese works, it’s an outwardly mundane exchange between retailer and client.

But the sparks between them are palpable, and the language — “What did you want when you were a little girl?” — fairly explodes with what’s going unspoken.

While Carol’s affection for other women — including her ex, Abby ( Sarah Paulson ) — led to the dissolution of her marriage to vulnerable-but-brutish Harge ( Kyle Chandler ), Therese has never before entertained such a notion. Despite her engagement to Richard ( Jake Lacy , confirming his status as the current cinema’s favorite empathetic conservative), Therese finds herself drawn more and more to Carol as their friendship blossoms.

Screenwriter Phyllis Nagy (“Mrs. Harris”) has adapted Patricia Highsmith ‘s novel “The Price of Salt,” one that Highsmith originally had to publish under a pen name not only for its lesbian content but also for the fact that it’s one of the few books of the 1950s about a same-sex relationship that has an ending that doesn’t involve suicide or a “cure.”

The screenplay maintains the book’s evocation of the era’s stultifying repression and conformity — Carol laments having to endure another “tomato-aspic luncheon” — while telling a love story that’s neither gloomily doomed nor anachronistically revolutionary.

“Carol” is a work of near-perfection, from the exquisite performances (Blanchett has never been better, and that’s saying something) to Ed Lachman’s evocative cinematography (his take on the 1950s is the wintry, melancholy version of the look of “Brooklyn”) to Carter Burwell’s powerfully minimalist score.

Like the characters, the audience must interpret the unspoken suggestions and subtle motions that have long been the semaphore of sexual rebels, but Nagy, Haynes and the talented cast tell a full story even when the characters have to talk around what they’re really feeling. Both haunting and sweeping, “Carol” represents another masterwork from one of this generation’s great filmmakers.

By Peter Travers

Peter Travers

It’s the early 1950s, and Manhattan shopgirl Therese Belivet ( Rooney Mara ) is on the phone with Carol Aird ( Cate Blanchett ), a married socialite who arouses feelings shy Therese can’t articulate. “Ask me things,” says Carol. And the way Blanchett, an actress of sublime beauty and brilliance, caresses the word “things,” opens up a universe of unspoken desire. That’s a specialty for director Todd Haynes ( Far From Heaven ), who reaches a new peak of film artistry.

Phyllis Nagy adapted her delicately nuanced script from a book, The Price of Salt, that suspense author Patricia Highsmith published under a pseudonym. Sure, a lesbian love story was hot stuff in 1952, but a lesbian love story with hints of a happy ending – that was revolutionary.

Future and Metro Boomin Tap J. Cole for 'We Still Don't Trust You' Despite Apparent Diss

Norm macdonald was the hater o.j. simpson could never outrun, the battle over classic rock band the guess who just went nuclear, jellyroll vs. jelly roll: pennsylvania band sues country star for trademark infringement.

Camera virtuoso Edward Lachman finds visual poetry in the hothouse eroticism that envelops Carol and Therese, an amateur photographer who keeps framing Carol in her lens. Blanchett, a dream walking in Sandy Powell’s frocks, delivers a master class in acting. And Mara is flawless, revealing Therese’s sexual confusion as she moves away from boyfriend Richard (Jake Lacy) and toward a seductive unknown. When the two women drive cross-country, lost in each other, Carol’s husband, Harge (a fiercely fine Kyle Chandler), shows his resentment by suing for custody of their daughter.

Haynes’ commitment to outcasts, then and now, makes Carol a romantic spellbinder that cuts deep. It’s one of the year’s very best films. Blanchett and Mara should have Oscar calling for giving heroic dimensions to characters who step out of the shadows and into a harsh world that their courage just might change. I wanted to cheer.

Chris Farley Biopic in the Works With Paul Walter Hauser in Lead Role

• In Development
• By Larisha Paul

Ryan Gosling Initially Turned Down 'I'm Just Ken' Oscars Performance Ask Before Unleashing Inner Pop Star

• Couldn't Miss the Moment

Sebastian Stan Looks Ready to Violate the Fair Housing Act as Donald Trump in 'The Apprentice'

More 'jinx': see trailer for hbo's 'part two' docuseries about robert durst.

• 'killed them all'
• By Daniel Kreps

'Bridgerton' Season 3 Trailer: Penelope and Colin Begin a Classic Friends-to-Lovers Storyline

• Dear Reader
• By Jodi Guglielmi

Most Popular

Jodie foster pulled robert downey jr. aside on their 1995 film set and told him: 'i’m scared of what happens to you next' because of addiction, where to stream 'quiet on set: the dark side of kids tv' online, sources claim john travolta is ‘totally smitten’ with this co-star, angel reese signs multiyear agreement with panini america, you might also like, luminate streaming ratings: ‘ripley,’ ‘files of the unexplained,’ ‘3 body problem’ dominate series; ‘scoop’ breaks big in movies for april 5-11, esprit restructuring globally, layoffs hit n.y headquarters, the best running water bottles according to marathoners, eleanor coppola, ‘hearts of darkness’ documentarian and francis ford coppola’s longtime wife, dead at 87, splash and sportico partner for $100k masters tiers contest.

Rolling Stone is a part of Penske Media Corporation. © 2024 Rolling Stone, LLC. All rights reserved.

Verify it's you

Please log in.

'Carol' Review: The Most Romantic Movie of the Year

The Cate Blanchett-Rooney Mara romance is one of the most aching, heartfelt, and expertly performed films of the year. In short, 'Carol' is one of the best films of 2015. Period.

Note: This is a repost of our review from the Telluride Film Festival ; Carol begins in limited release tomorrow, November 20, and will expand markets thereafter.

Todd Haynes  has built a career in bold cinema. He began his directorial career with an experimental documentary film that used Barbie dolls to re-enact the eating disorder and depression battles of Karen Carpenterb. He then used PBS' money to film a delirious short film about a young boy who desperately wants to be spanked after seeing it happen to a TV actress named Dottie. Haynes jumped into indie prominence with a chemical paranoia tale in  Safe , then shifted gears to theatrical expression with the glam-rock bisexual opus,  Velvet Goldmine . Haynes followed up his biggest mainstream acceptance, the Douglas Sirk-inspired 50s melodrama update Far from Heaven —which included the sexual orientations and racial imbalance that Sirk could only allude to—with an unconventional biopic of Bob Dylan—played by both genders and multiple actors—in, I'm Not There .

Carol  is Haynes' newest film after a long hiatus—a hiatus that also included the magnificent HBO mini-series  Mildred Pierce —and though it might be his most straight-forward movie, it is deceptively bold. More simply put, Carol  might be his most grand film, even though this is Haynes at his most formal. Carol  is focused on gestures, and requires patience—something that falling in love also requires—but pays off immensely as one of the most aching, heartfelt and expertly performed films of the year.  

Notice: All forms on this website are temporarily down for maintenance. You will not be able to complete a form to request information or a resource. We apologize for any inconvenience and will reactivate the forms as soon as possible.

• DVD & Streaming
• Drama , Romance

Content Caution

In Theaters

• November 20, 2015
• Cate Blanchett as Carol Aird; Rooney Mara as Therese Belivet; Kyle Chandler as Harge Aird; Jake Lacy as Richard Semco; Sarah Paulson as Abby Gerhard

Home Release Date

• March 15, 2016
• Todd Haynes

Distributor

• Weinstein Company

Movie Review

The human will is a remarkable thing. Few of us succeed by accident. Through force of will we study harder, work longer, lift one more time, swim one more lap. When our bodies and minds hit the wall, it’s the will that pushes us past the barrier—over, under or through. “Where there’s a will, there’s a way,” we’re told, and so often it’s true.

But even will has limits.

It’s Christmas, 1952, and America has willed itself to be the globe’s greatest colossus. Its tireless work ethic helped bring it victory in World War II, and now it’s powering the nation’s prosperity. Cars fill New York’s streets like minnows. Men make grand and daring deals on Wall Street. Women, furs draped over their shoulders and hats perched on their hair, flit in and out of shining department stores, leaving trails of money behind them.

Therese Belivet watches from behind the counter at Frankenberg’s department store, selling dolls and trains and other toys. It’s not exactly her dream job, to be sure: She’d like to be a photographer if she could. But in the 1950s, few women work once they’re married, and wedding bells could be right around the corner for Therese. At least, so her beau, Richard, hopes. He’s told Therese he loves her. He’s invited her to go to Europe with him on business. He’s done everything but physically pull her down the aisle and force the words “I do” out of her mouth.

Therese can’t say those words just yet. Richard’s a nice guy and all. Therese knows she should like him more. But she just can’t seem to make herself be attracted to the guy.

And then, across the cavernous sales floor, Therese sees her: Her blonde hair curving above her coat like a sculpture, her apple-red lips barely feathered in an uncertain smile. She’s accidentally knocked the power out on Frankenberg’s extravagant train display: The trains coasts and slows, the toy men and women ceasing their blind movements. The tiny, artificial village slips into silence. And Carol returns Therese’s fascinated gaze.

Therese is quickly called back to business. The train is flicked back on. The moment is over …

Until the woman is there, in front of Therese. Her gloves rest demurely on the counter as her eyes rest on Therese—questioning, probing. She asks about dolls. They talk about trains. But the real conversation—the crease of the eye, the curl of the mouth, the roll of the breath—is about something else.

The will is a powerful thing, yes. The want is something else again.

[ Spoilers are contained in the following sections. ]

Positive Elements

Carol—the woman with the apple-red lips—is married but separated, and she dearly loves their daughter, Rindy. Not enough, it turns out. But it’s not nothing, either. (More on that a bit later.) “We gave each other Rindy, and that is the most breathtaking, most generous of gifts,” she tells her husband, Harge, during a custody proceeding. “Why are we trying to spend so much time keeping her from each other?”

Beyond mere sexual attraction, Carol tries hard to demonstrate that she wants what’s best for Therese—even if that means they’re no longer together. Abby—a past lover of Carol’s—also tries to be a good friend, doing whatever she can to make Carol’s crisis a bit easier to bear.

Sexual Content

Carol and Therese share many hotel rooms as they drive across the country. Twice we see them “sleep” together, kissing and clutching passionately. During one of those panting encounters, both women disrobe. Breast nudity is shown. It’s implied that oral sex is given.

Leading up to their sexual involvement, the two women spend a great deal of screen time exchanging lingering, longing looks, suggestive touches, etc.

We hear references to Carol’s affair with Abby. It’s something Harge knows about, and he expresses a great deal of anger and angst over Carol’s sexual proclivities. “I put nothing past women like you, Carol,” he huffs. “You married a woman like me!” Carol responds.

Before Therese gets involved with Carol, she and Richard spend much time together. He kisses her on her neck during a movie. And we hear that he’s slept with two other girls. Therese asks him if he’s ever “fallen in love with a boy” (he hasn’t) and discusses the “intricacies” of attraction with him. When Therese announces that she’s going on a road trip with Carol, Richard says that Therese has a silly “crush” and that in two weeks she’ll be crawling back to him, begging him to forget anything ever happened. Another man kisses Therese, making them both feel awkward.

As part of her effort to stay in contact with Rindy, Carol goes to a psychotherapist—with the suggestion being that she’s getting help to overcome her same-sex attractions. But she ultimately gives up on her battle for custody, telling her husband and the lawyers that she simply can’t conform to their idea of what a wife and mother should be. That she can’t go “against the grain” of who she is.

Violent Content

Carol packs a gun in her suitcase. When it’s discovered that someone in the next hotel room was taping her sexual tryst with Therese, Carol barges through the door and points the gun at the man. Then she aims at the reel-to-reel recorder and pulls the trigger several times—revealing that the gun wasn’t loaded. A very drunk Harge gets pushed to the ground by Carol while they’re arguing.

Crude or Profane Language

Two f-words. We also hear close to 10 uses of “d–n,” half of them in conjunction with God’s name. Jesus’ name is abused two or three times. There are one to three each of “h—” and “b–ch.”

Drug and Alcohol Content

Carol and Therese both smoke cigarettes. After she and Harge argue and he storms out, Carol is exasperated by her lack of smokes. “Just when you think it can’t get any worse, you run out of cigarettes,” she says. Elsewhere, Carol gives a cigarette to another female friend. The friend laments that her husband doesn’t like her to smoke. “So?” Carol says. “You like it.”

There’s a great deal of drinking going on, too. Carol and Therese drink champagne and beer on New Year’s Eve, and through the rest of the year we see them and others down wine, martinis, whiskey, etc. At a party, we see people imbibing and then, later, passed out around the living room. We see drunks stagger on the sidewalk. Harge, it’s suggested, gets drunk frequently. And we see him falling down from the stuff.

Other Negative Elements

Carol lies about making a phone call. Therese throws up on the side of a road.

“You don’t know why you’re attracted to some people and not others,” someone tells Therese. “The only thing you know is whether you are attracted or not. Like physics.”

That’s partly true. As discussed, your will doesn’t always tell you what you want —not initially, anyway. Attraction is a mysterious thing. We want what we want … even when we don’t want to want it. The Apostle Paul said as much in Romans 7. And in the context of Carol —set in a time when practically every strata of society thought homosexuality was deviant and abhorrent—we can see the angst Carol and Therese feel. You get the sense that Carol—a product of the age—sometimes wants to change. But the movie, unmistakably, tells us that the morality of the day was wrong. And that we shouldn’t punish her for being attracted to someone we think she shouldn’t be.

It’s not like she has a choice, Carol says.

But in pressing this point—one that makes it so resonant for much of today’s more permissive culture—the movie makes the same mistake that probably 80% of all those guy-girl romance movies do: It mistakes attraction for love.

When Abby tells Therese about her fling with Carol—and why they’re not “together” anymore—she says, simply, “It changed. It changes. Nobody’s fault.” When the attraction falters the relationship is done, Abby suggests.

We get hints that that’s what happened with Carol and Harge, too. “Abby and I were over a long time before you and I were over, Harge,” Carol tells him. So it seems the two were a “loving couple,” as the movie would define such things—at least for a while.

We are at the mercy of “physics,” Carol says, pulled and pushed by our attractions and repulsions like magnets. And when they fade or flux, it’s nobody’s fault. We simply have to move on to the next magnetic pull.

And that, of course, gets love entirely wrong—and not just because the film’s about lesbians. Because love is a matter of will, not want. Yes, attraction is often the catalyst, but marriages do not last 30, 40, 50 years on attraction alone. We choose to love the people in our lives. And some days, that choice is difficult. Feelings change. Love, if a man and woman will it to be, is constant. If we are boats, our feelings can be the ocean wind. But love—love is the anchor. Love is the harbor. And to mistake one for the other—no matter which way those attractions blow—is to resign yourself to a stormy life indeed.

“Tell me you know what you’re doing,” Abby tells Carol when she hears about Carol’s interest in Therese.

“I don’t,” Carol says. “I never did.”

Carol is a compellingly crafted and deeply problematic movie. It features one of the best actresses of our era presiding over a delicately nuanced, deeply probing look at society and relationships in the 1950s. But when we examine its core premise, alas, Carol loses its attraction long before we even need to start discussing its same-sex protagonists or their skin-heavy bed scenes. When a love story doesn’t know what real love is, how can we trust it with anything else?

Paul Asay has been part of the Plugged In staff since 2007, watching and reviewing roughly 15 quintillion movies and television shows. He’s written for a number of other publications, too, including Time, The Washington Post and Christianity Today. The author of several books, Paul loves to find spirituality in unexpected places, including popular entertainment, and he loves all things superhero. His vices include James Bond films, Mountain Dew and terrible B-grade movies. He’s married, has two children and a neurotic dog, runs marathons on occasion and hopes to someday own his own tuxedo. Feel free to follow him on Twitter @AsayPaul.

Latest Reviews

The Long Game

The Greatest Hits

Weekly reviews straight to your inbox.

• Become a Critical Movie Critic
• Movie Review Archives

Movie Review: Carol (2015)

• Howard Schumann
• Movie Reviews
• No responses
• --> December 14, 2015

“Art thou pale for weariness of climbing heaven and gazing on Earth, wandering companionless?” — Percy Bysshe Shelley, “To The Moon”

A film about loss, loneliness, and love, Todd Haynes’ (“I’m Not There”) Carol is the story of Therese Belivet (Rooney Mara, “ The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo ”), a nineteen year-old salesgirl whose chance encounter with Carol Aird (Cate Blanchett, “ Cinderella ”), an older married woman, wealthy and privileged yet seductive and vulnerable, is a seminal moment in her life. Though the film has a lesbian theme, it is more of a coming-of-age depiction of a rudderless young woman seeking her identity who finds herself, like Stephen Gordon in Radclyffe Hall’s 1928 novel, “The Well of Loneliness,” “like a soul that wakes up to find itself wandering, unwanted, between the spheres.”

Based on “The Price of Salt,” a 1952 novel by Patricia Highsmith and adapted for the screen by Phyllis Nagy, the film is set in New York in 1951. Therese works in the toy department of an upscale department store under the watchful eye of her bossy supervisor. She dreams of becoming a photographer, has a boyfriend Richard (Jake Lacy, “ Love the Coopers ”) who wants to travel and get married but “like a rolling stone with no direction home,” she is rudderless and withdrawn, unable to commit herself to any attainable goal. Things change abruptly, however, when her eyes focus on a blonde-haired vampish-looking woman, elegantly dressed in a fur coat shopping for a gift for her daughter Rindy (Sadie Heim and Kk Heim).

Directed to purchase an expensive model train set, the woman inadvertently or purposefully leaves her gloves on the counter. When Therese mails the gloves back to her, to show her appreciation (or to expand her appreciation), Carol invites the younger woman to lunch, then to her New Jersey mansion where she lives with her husband Harge (Kyle Chandler, “ The Wolf of Wall Street ”), whom she is in the process of divorcing. At their first meeting at lunch, Carol, a mature and confident woman who has had previous same-sex relationships, in particular with friend Abby Gerhard (Sarah Paulson, “ 12 Years a Slave ”), is struck by the girl’s innocent charm. What a strange girl you are,” she tells her, “flung out of space.”

After an angry exchange with Harge and Therese’s confrontation with her clueless boyfriend, Carol and Therese drive to the Midwest for Christmas just to get away and be by themselves. There is little conversation and feelings are left in unexplored territory, yet their longing for connectedness achieves release in a tender, yet strangely emotionless sex scene. When Carol leaves suddenly after discovering that Harge has taped the proceedings as ammunition in a battle for custody of Rindy, Therese is faced with putting her life back together.

The narrative formulation of Carol is traditional, yet the quality of the film is fine-tuned for maximum impact, an achievement brilliantly realized by cinematographer Edward Lachman, the production designers and set decorators, and especially the superb award-winning performances of Mara and Blanchett. While we learn little about how both experience the alienation that comes with being outside of societal norms, there are no words or outward display of emotion that could help us understand the characters. The air of aloofness that Haynes creates is in essence an air of mystery, haunting and fascinating yet unreachable, the palpable realization that we can never truly know another human being.

Tagged: affair , love , New York City , novel adaptation , women

I am a retired father of two living with my wife in Vancouver, B.C. who has had a lifelong interest in the arts.

Movie Review: Hit the Road (2021) Movie Review: Happening (2021) Movie Review: Playground (2021) Movie Review: The Power of the Dog (2021) Movie Review: After Yang (2021) Movie Review: The Tragedy of Macbeth (2021) Movie Review: The Worst Person in the World (2021)

'Movie Review: Carol (2015)' has no comments

Privacy Policy | About Us

 |  Log in

Carol Review

27 Nov 2015

The sounds of a train station over black and then, what’s that? A fence? A cage? No, it’s a floor grille we open on — elegant and iron and covering who knows what. This is a film about entrapment and escape and finding out what is underneath the veneer — of society, our ourselves.

From Strangers On A Train to the various talented Ripleys, Patricia Highsmith’s novels and short stories have proved fertile fiction for big-screen skulduggery for 65 years, but this is the first film adaptation of her second novel, The Price Of Salt , and atypical in that the deaths are more of desire than physical. There is danger and violence here, but the emotional blows land heaviest. The film is measured and restrained and as muted as its autumnal colour palette but the little moments — the silences, the looks, the longing — build and build, to power a freight train of feeling.

Highsmith’s story of a romance between two women was published under a pseudonym in 1952, so as to avoid scandal sticking to her. What was daring then should not now raise so many eyebrows, although Phyllis Nagy’s screenplay deftly shows how convention can trap us all — regardless of gender or status or sexual orientation. As much as the film is about a story billed at the time as “a love society forbids”, it is also about simple separation and divorce — that loneliness and confusion. It would have been very easy for the makers to present Carol’s husband Harge (the wonderful Kyle Chandler) as a villain, but we see that his actions come from confusion and desperation, rather than hatred.

The little moments — the silences, the looks, the longing — build and build, to power a freight train of feeling.

The film has some of its most poignant moments not in its central love but Carol dealing with her infant child — explaining, in a beautiful, sorrowful line, why she can’t be with her: “Sometimes mommies and daddies just decide there isn’t enough room for them in the same place at the same time.”

Todd Haynes’ last big-screen story of ’50s forbidden love was Douglas Sirk-tribute Far From Heaven , but the lack of irony or detachment here elevates Carol . Aside from a rather too knowing moment when a character, watching a film, talks of the difference between what people say and what they really feel, this is a straight, sincere picture (aided endlessly by Carter Burwell’s sumptuous score). The decision to film on Super 16mm makes it, cleverly, feel both from another era and yet immediate. Characters are often eclipsed by edges — of doors, chairs, people — and beats pass where we can only imagine or anticipate how our lovers must be feeling. Blanchett is brilliant — she so often is it is easy to take it for granted — but Mara has the longer distance to travel, from confused girl to grown woman, and her versatility and sensitivity is simply stunning. She is very Other — “my angel, flung out of space”. But she is also Us.

See more from the best films of 2015

Related Articles

Movies | 25 06 2020

Movies | 07 02 2020

Movies | 06 09 2018

Movies | 22 03 2018

Movies | 02 03 2018

Movies | 20 09 2017

Movies | 28 02 2016

Movies | 17 02 2016

Screen Rant

Carol review.

Carol is a visually rich period drama that boasts strong performances and refined direction, though some may find it easier to admire than love.

Carol is a visually rich period drama that boasts strong performances and refined direction, though some may find it easier to admire than love.

Carol  is set during the early 1950s, where a young woman named Therese Belivet (Rooney Mara) works in a department store by day, but aspires (and practices) to become a photographer in her free time. One day at work, Therese crosses paths with an older woman named Carol Aird (Cate Blanchett) and is immediately smitten with her glamorous customer - taking advantage of Carol having (accidentally?) left her gloves behind as an opportunity to make contact outside of work. Therese and Carol thereafter discretely, but clearly, begin to pursue a relationship with each other, though Therese's lack of experience puts her at a disadvantage in this courtship.

However, Carol is also in the midst of a divorce and her soon to be ex-husband, Harge (Kyle Chandler), is quick to recognize that Carol's interest in Therese - something he aims to exploit as leverage, while he and Carol settle out custody rights for their young daughter. Carol nevertheless continues to seek out the company of Therese, as the connection between them grows deeper and becomes more than just lustful in nature. But will there ultimately be anything other than heartbreak in the cards for the two lovers?

Carol is based on the 1952 novel "The Price of Salt" (which was later republished as "Carol") written by Patricia Highsmith, the author responsible for such touchstone psychological thrillers as Strangers on a Train and The Talented Mr. Ripley . The movie adaptation of Highsmith's source material, as written for the big screen by Phyllis Nagy ( Mrs. Harris ), plays out as a very restrained and moody romantic drama; reflecting not just the conservative atmosphere of its 1950s backdrop, but also emphasizing that what is not said aloud by its lead characters is often more important than what is. The film in turn presents a cooler alternative portrayal of the '50s to the warmer portrait painted recently by the drama  Brooklyn  - but, for the most part, effectively.

While the love story presented by Carol was revolutionary back when Highsmith wrote it in the 1950s, its film adaptation is less ground-breaking in the present day by comparison - recalling how the film version of  Revolutionary Road was less impactful (with its own re-examination of the 1960s) when it was released in a post- Mad Men world. Carol director Todd Haynes has also examined similar subject matter before (in movies like Far from Heaven and his Mildred Pierce mini-series), though the narrative that he and Nagy have crafted here is nonetheless satisfying as a piece of character-driven storytelling that offers (for the most part) subtle social commentary, taken on its own merits. Carol thus falls short of being a mold-breaker, but at the same time it's still a slow-burn prestige drama with a beating pulse.

With regard to craftsmanship, Carol boasts exquisite cinematography by Haynes' frequent collaborator Edward Lachman, giving rise to a dreary, yet at the same time ethereal vision of the 1950s through the use of a subdued, yet still pleasing color palette. Haynes and Lachman use careful framing and blocking techniques to visually communicate not only the mutual feeling of alienation and vulnerability among the film's characters, but also the yearning experienced by them too. These ideas are further expressed through the elegant production design by Judy Becker ( American Hustle ) and equally beautiful costume designs by Sandy Powell ( Cinderella ), which express as much about the film's characters and their own state of being as their words or actions. As such, much of Carol 's substance comes through  its stylistic elements (including Carter Burwell's moving score)... for better or worse.

Rooney Mara and Cate Blanchett both deliver excellent performances in Carol as, respectively, a young person who's only coming into her own as an adult and an older soul whose experience and emotional baggage is both helpful and detrimental. Mara and Blanchett alike manage to express much about their characters through facial expressions and body movement alone (as mentioned before), in turn making it all the more apparent how much more Therese and Carol want to say to one another than they ever do. However, while the connection between Carol 's two protagonists is believable on the whole, there's not  that much pure screen chemistry between Mara and Blanchett - meaning, the film succeeds more at making its viewers become invested in the fates of its main characters individually, rather than their possible future together.

Blanchett and Mara are the main attractions in Carol , but they're helped along the way by a talented and capable crew of supporting actors too - including, Kyle Chandler ( Bloodline ) as Carol's hurt, but at the same time hurtful, soon to be ex-husband Harge and Sarah Paulson ( American Horror Story ), who plays Abby: Carol's old friend and onetime lover. Other players in the film include noteworthy character actors like Cory Michael Smith ( Gotham ), Jake Lacy ( Obvious Child ), and John Magaro ( Unbroken ), all of whom deliver solid performances as the various men who have some significant impact on Therese and/or Carol's life, in some way or another.

Carol is a visually rich period drama that boasts strong performances and refined direction, though some may find it easier to admire than love. Many a filmgoer will be swept up by Carol 's story about forbidden love between two kindred spirits against a gorgeously-recreated period setting, but at the same time others may find themselves more entranced by how the story is being told rather than the relationships between characters or the exact details of what is happening onscreen, in terms of plot. Todd Haynes' film has already been deservedly recognized in the ongoing awards season for its accomplishments, and Carol is certainly recommendable to those who love a good arthouse drama for related reasons (its lack of crossover appeal aside).

Carol is now playing in the U.S. in a limited theatrical release. It is 118 minutes long and is Rated R for a scene of sexuality/nudity and brief language.

Let us know what you thought of the film in the comment section.

Carol (2015)

• User Reviews

Awards | FAQ | User Ratings | External Reviews | Metacritic Reviews

• User Ratings
• External Reviews
• Metacritic Reviews
• Full Cast and Crew
• Release Dates
• Official Sites
• Company Credits
• Filming & Production
• Technical Specs
• Plot Summary
• Plot Keywords
• Parents Guide

Did You Know?

• Crazy Credits
• Alternate Versions
• Connections
• Soundtracks

Photo & Video

• Photo Gallery
• Trailers and Videos

Related Items

• External Sites

Related lists from IMDb users

Recently Viewed

Flickering Myth

Geek Culture | Movies, TV, Comic Books & Video Games

Movie Review – Carol (2015)

October 19, 2015 by Robert Kojder

Carol , 2015.

Directed by Todd Haynes. Starring Cate Blanchett, Rooney Mara, Sarah Paulson, Jake Lacy, John Magaro and Kyle Chandler.

Set in 1950s New York, a department-store clerk who dreams of a better life falls for an older, married woman.

Love is the most powerful force in the universe. Unfortunately, it took us until 2015 to legalize gay marriage across the country, while the cause for enlightenment towards anyone disgusted by a relationship out of the ordinary wages on. But it’s important to remember that things were far more regressive even just a short time ago, like during the 1950s. Furthermore, that’s what Carol  ( based on the acclaimed novel The Price of Salt by Patricia Highsmith) does best; it’s a portrait of forbidden love that when all is said and done, makes you grateful for the societal progress we are making.

Enough about modern day circumstances however, as Carol contains a perfectly and authentically realized recreation of 1950s New York, complete with fascinating costume design (it could be something as simple as a festive holiday spirit hat or glamorous fur-coats representing a privileged upper-class lifestyle) and production design. The amount of detail found within train-rides home, expensive restaurants, light snow pouring down on the streets, and more will suck viewers into a historical context that accentuates the permeating romance our leading lesbian pair must refrain from expressing in public.

Due to the ostracized nature of openly gay relationships at the time, there are often times in watching Carol  where I felt the movie would work brilliantly, and in some ways even more effective ,as a silent film. So much of the festering affection Carol (Cate Blanchett) and Therese (Rooney Mara) show for each other is often elicited through body language and intense, lustful staring, or very subtle physical interactions. I am almost certain that if the dialogue were muted, you could follow along with the narrative just fine; the performances are that raw and believable.

Elevating this heightened sensation of sexual tension is what is quite easily the most beautiful original score of 2015. Right from the opening credits, the powerful, melancholic melodies grab your attention and continuously guide the story throughout each moment, but wisely always pull back from time to time to never overtake a scene fully. Carter Burwell’s music is already beginning to swoop up multiple nominations at various award circuits, and it will unquestionably garner an Oscar nomination along with a potential win.

As an assault on senses, Carol is hands down one of the finest creations of the year. There isn’t a single scene that is anything less than stunning to look at, as the movie features out-of-this-world shot composition, most notably with a scene of the camera panning from Therese’s sobbing face, to the windows of the train, to her exiting exiting a taxi and arriving home. The photography also loves giving characters some space,, with many extended conversations not only being composed as a tracking shot, but panned back all the way outside of rooms, and even frequently behind glass window panes. It’s like we are a fly on the wall peering into a very complicated love affair that is immorally kept under control by the male counterpart of each female.

Some will undoubtedly write off Carol’s husband as a vindictive asshole not afraid to blackmail his wife into cooperating with his marital desires and insistence on custody of their daughter, but by labeling him one-dimensional you are doing a disservice to the grander complexities of his character. Deep down he is a broken man who truly does love his wife, but ultimately has fallen under a malevolent spell, believing that if he can’t have Carol, no one can. Certainly not another woman. Kyle Chandler is absolutely fantastic in this role, and I’m somewhat shocked that he isn’t getting much traction in awards races.

Despite all this overwhelming praise, quite a bit of Carol just doesn’t click or emotionally resonate like it should. It spends a fair amount of time building a romance that audiences can buy into (something that is paramount for a film of this nature to function properly as drama), but it is also a cold film that doesn’t necessarily serve up reason to root for any particular character.

It doesn’t help that some of Blanchett’s performance feels ultra scripted and stilted, while Mara evokes a much more natural charm. Again, it’s truly the body language and heavy facial expressions (just watch Mara for seconds on end , all round-eyed immediately after every time she is forced with making a quick decision) that carries the weight of the tale. In terms of dialogue, less is more could have went a long way, especially when some of it can get a little pretentious, but thankfully never aggravating.

Still, Carol is a titillating and measured look at a brewing relationship that is unequivocally liberating once the two finally make love. And no, I’m not solely saying that because Rooney Mara gets naked again; there is simply genuine care and beauty radiating from the on-screen chemistry of these star-crossed lovers. Then there’s the final 20 minutes or so, which are breathtakingly heartwarming, filled with pain and joy.

Carol is an exercise in masterclass filmmaking by director Todd Haynes that just takes a bit too long to reveal the true ramifications of its story. By then you’re hooked and invested, but it’s also too late, meaning that most will find the experience as a whole, alienating.

Flickering Myth Rating  – Film: ★ ★ ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★ ★

Robert Kojder – An aficionado of film, wrestling, and gaming. Follow me on Twitter or friend me on Facebook

YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE:

The Most Shocking Movies of the 1970s

Action Movies Blessed with Stunning Cinematography

Ranking Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Post-Governator Starring Roles

The Worst Movies From The Best Horror Franchises

The Essential Modern Day Swashbucklers

The Best & Worst Marvel Movies of the 20th Century Fox Era

10 Essential Films From 1984

The Films Quentin Tarantino Wrote But Didn’t Direct

House of the Dragon Season 2 Easter Eggs From the Teasers

The 10 Best Villains in Sylvester Stallone Movies

• Comic Books
• Video Games
• Toys & Collectibles
• Articles and Opinions
• About Flickering Myth
• Write for Flickering Myth
• Advertise on Flickering Myth
• Terms of Use
• Privacy Policy

Common Sense Media

Movie & TV reviews for parents

• For Parents
• For Educators
• Our Work and Impact

Or browse by category:

• Get the app
• Movie Reviews
• Best Movie Lists
• Best Movies on Netflix, Disney+, and More

Common Sense Selections for Movies

50 Modern Movies All Kids Should Watch Before They're 12

• Best TV Lists
• Best TV Shows on Netflix, Disney+, and More
• Common Sense Selections for TV
• Video Reviews of TV Shows

Best Kids' Shows on Disney+

Best Kids' TV Shows on Netflix

• Book Reviews
• Best Book Lists
• Common Sense Selections for Books

8 Tips for Getting Kids Hooked on Books

50 Books All Kids Should Read Before They're 12

• Game Reviews
• Best Game Lists

Common Sense Selections for Games

• Video Reviews of Games

Nintendo Switch Games for Family Fun

• Podcast Reviews
• Best Podcast Lists

Common Sense Selections for Podcasts

Parents' Guide to Podcasts

• App Reviews
• Best App Lists

Social Networking for Teens

Gun-Free Action Game Apps

Reviews for AI Apps and Tools

• YouTube Channel Reviews
• YouTube Kids Channels by Topic

Parents' Ultimate Guide to YouTube Kids

YouTube Kids Channels for Gamers

• Preschoolers (2-4)
• Little Kids (5-7)
• Big Kids (8-9)
• Pre-Teens (10-12)
• Teens (13+)
• Screen Time
• Social Media
• Online Safety
• Identity and Community

Explaining the News to Our Kids

• Family Tech Planners
• Digital Skills
• All Articles
• Latino Culture
• Black Voices
• Asian Stories
• Native Narratives
• LGBTQ+ Pride
• Best of Diverse Representation List

Celebrating Black History Month

Movies and TV Shows with Arab Leads

Celebrate Hip-Hop's 50th Anniversary

Common sense media reviewers.

Moving, beautifully acted '50s-set drama about secret love.

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this movie.

Integrity is a major theme. Being true to yourself

Carol is fighting a huge battle to be authentic to

A husband screams at and manhandles his wife durin

A couple has sex in a tastefully filmed, non-gratu

Lots of social drinking. A man comes home drunk an

Parents need to know that Carol is a deeply affecting 1950s-set drama starring Cate Blanchett and Rooney Mara about love, identity, friendship, sexuality, and marriage that explores mature themes. Expect lots of period-accurate smoking and some social drinking in this story that explores the risks -- and…

Positive Messages

Integrity is a major theme. Being true to yourself may not be the easiest path, but it's the only way to inner peace and true happiness. Integrity is an additi

Positive Role Models

Carol is fighting a huge battle to be authentic to herself and her sexual identity at a time when that meant being ostracized and losing your rights to your child. Nonetheless, she fights on, preferring to be true to herself than to living a lie. Therese is young and still trying to figure it out, but she, too, comes to a decision not to live as someone she isn't.

Violence & Scariness

A husband screams at and manhandles his wife during an argument. A private investigator spies on two women and is menacing in his approach to his job.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Violence & Scariness in your kid's entertainment guide.

Sex, Romance & Nudity

A couple has sex in a tastefully filmed, non-gratuitous scene; breasts are shown.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Sex, Romance & Nudity in your kid's entertainment guide.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Language in your kid's entertainment guide.

Drinking, Drugs & Smoking

Lots of social drinking. A man comes home drunk and belligerent. Also lots of period-accurate smoking (nearly constantly for one character).

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Drinking, Drugs & Smoking in your kid's entertainment guide.

Parents Need to Know

Parents need to know that Carol is a deeply affecting 1950s-set drama starring Cate Blanchett and Rooney Mara about love, identity, friendship, sexuality, and marriage that explores mature themes. Expect lots of period-accurate smoking and some social drinking in this story that explores the risks -- and rewards -- of being true to who you really are. The two stars are shown making love in a non-gratuitous scene; there's some nudity, mainly breasts. Language is mild. To stay in the loop on more movies like this, you can sign up for weekly Family Movie Night emails .

Where to Watch

Videos and photos.

Community Reviews

• Parents say (4)
• Kids say (12)

Based on 4 parent reviews

Beautiful Love Story

Moving lesbian themed 1950s romance, what's the story.

Based on Patricia Highsmith's novel The Price of Salt , CAROL tells the story of Carol Aird ( Cate Blanchett ), a 1950s New Jersey housewife estranged from her husband who finds herself drawn to aspiring photographer/Manhattan shopgirl Therese Belivet ( Rooney Mara ) when their paths cross on a shopping trip. When Therese reaches out to return gloves that Carol has forgotten at the store, so begins a friendship that evolves quickly into a passionate love. But there's a wrinkle: Carol's husband ( Kyle Chandler ) won't let her be -- let alone give her access to their daughter -- as Carol and Therese explore an attraction that can't and won't be denied, despite the prejudices of their time.

Is It Any Good?

This movie will haunt you with its tale of love denied and forbidden and a woman's quest to live authentically while facing social prejudices and bigotry that force her to make a difficult choice. Director Todd Haynes , as always, works with a saturated, Douglas Sirk-ian palette, but Carol 's vibrancy is dimmed here by a layer of melancholy -- an apt choice, given the storyline.

Blanchett and Rooney make a powerful pair, perfectly matched like a veteran duo partnering up for an intricate and challenging ballet. And as Carol's best friend/former lover, Sarah Paulson gives a master class in grounded acting; in fact, almost everyone in the film comes across as a fully embodied person, neither caricature nor overthought character. And they're all supported by a potently rendered, empathetic script that's both achingly beautiful and hauntingly painful.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

Families can talk about Carol and her choices: What were her realistic options? How would her situation be different today?

How does this film differ from others in the way it handles the subject of sexuality? How might this movie have been received if it came out in the era it takes place in?

How does the movie handle sex ? What does it represent for the characters? Parents, talk to your teens about your own values regarding sex and relationships.

How do the characters in Carol demonstrate integrity ? Why is this an important character strength ?

Movie Details

• In theaters : November 20, 2015
• On DVD or streaming : March 15, 2016
• Cast : Cate Blanchett , Rooney Mara , Sarah Paulson
• Director : Todd Haynes
• Inclusion Information : Gay directors, Female actors
• Studio : The Weinstein Company
• Genre : Drama
• Topics : Book Characters
• Character Strengths : Integrity
• Run time : 118 minutes
• MPAA rating : R
• MPAA explanation : a scene of sexuality/nudity and brief language
• Last updated : March 22, 2023

Did we miss something on diversity?

Research shows a connection between kids' healthy self-esteem and positive portrayals in media. That's why we've added a new "Diverse Representations" section to our reviews that will be rolling out on an ongoing basis. You can help us help kids by suggesting a diversity update.

Suggest an Update

Our editors recommend.

Far from Heaven

Suffragette

Drama Movies That Tug at the Heartstrings

Movies based on books, related topics.

• Book Characters

Want suggestions based on your streaming services? Get personalized recommendations

Common Sense Media's unbiased ratings are created by expert reviewers and aren't influenced by the product's creators or by any of our funders, affiliates, or partners.

"Cold and Calculating Left-Wing Political Correctness"

What You Need To Know:

(RoRoRo, PCPCPC, HoHoHo, FeFeFe, LL, V, SS, NN, AA, D, MM) Very strong Romantic, politically correct, pro-homosexual, radical feminist worldview about a lesbian affair between a married mother and a younger saleswoman at a department store; 11 obscenities and profanities (including one “f” word and several strong profanities); husband manhandles wife during an argument; depicted lesbian sex scene includes implied oral sex and lesbian kissing in story about a homosexual affair; upper female nudity and implied female nudity; alcohol use and husband comes home drunk; cigarette smoking; and, deception, movie seems to attack traditional marriage, and sexism against men and particularly the title character’s husband.

More Detail:

CAROL is the story of a lesbian affair between a married mother and a younger department-store saleslady, and the impact it has on their lives during the 1950s. CAROL has an unsympathetic protagonist and a very strong and abhorrent Romantic, politically correct, homosexual, and radical feminist worldview that implicitly attacks traditional views of marriage.

Based on a 1952 novel reportedly popular with lesbians in the 1950s, CAROL is a fictional tale, depicting the story of an upper-crust wife in 1950s New York City named Carol (Cate Blanchett), who finds herself transfixed by a younger saleslady named Therese (Rooney Mara). They meet at the perfume counter of a Macy’s-style department store. Carol is in a lifeless marriage to a man named Harge (Kyle Chandler), who is such a one-dimensional paragon of white-privileged patriarchal power that viewers only see him pining for and demanding loyalty from Carol. The movie doesn’t even tell what Harge does for a living.

That’s par for the course with this movie, since viewers also never learn what Therese really wants out of life, or why she would abruptly abandon her own serious relationship with a much nicer guy named Richard (Jake Lacy). Carol herself is a cipher much of the time, with the only moments of intrigue coming from the revelation that she had previously engaged in a relationship with her lifelong friend, Abby (Sarah Paulson), leaving Harge in despair as he sees her take up with Therese.

A custody battle over their daughter Rindi (names like Harge and Rindi should indicate the isolated bubble-world where these characters live) ensues, including dirty tricks like spying on the new lovers. This creates a couple of surprises, and Haynes wrings more tension from the script by Phyllis Nagy towards the end, but the overall effect of CAROL is strangely inert.

On an artistic level aside from moral and spiritual considerations, CAROL suffers from the fact it’s set in a time and era that has long since passed. This makes the movie seem like an instant museum piece. Strangely, it winds up being counterintuitive to its own agenda, because the title character features a woman who wreaks havoc on her marriage, coldly making her husband suffer both social embarrassment and emotional anguish, while also shutting out her past lesbian lover as well as her current one when her whims dictate it’s necessary.

Rather than being a sympathetic character, the title character comes off as a mostly calculating one. That is apt for a movie that’s clearly calculated to promote a politically correct, homosexual agenda and get plenty of awards from leftist Oscar voters and leftist movie critics. CAROL is meant only for viewers who lean left on the issue of homosexual “civil rights” and other liberal talking points. It’s unlikely to move anyone else at all. CAROL also contains some lewd content and explicit nudity.

Now more than ever we’re bombarded by darkness in media, movies, and TV. Movieguide® has fought back for almost 40 years, working within Hollywood to propel uplifting and positive content. We’re proud to say we’ve collaborated with some of the top industry players to influence and redeem entertainment for Jesus. Still, the most influential person in Hollywood is you. The viewer.

What you listen to, watch, and read has power. Movieguide® wants to give you the resources to empower the good and the beautiful. But we can’t do it alone. We need your support.

You can make a difference with as little as $7. It takes only a moment. If you can, consider supporting our ministry with a monthly gift. Thank you.

Movieguide® is a 501c3 and all donations are tax deductible.

Movie Reviews

Tv/streaming, collections, great movies, chaz's journal, contributors.

Now streaming on:

"It was a convenient place to stay."—Prince Andrew, BBC Newsnight interview, November, 2019

It seems, frankly, unbelievable that Prince Andrew would agree to be interviewed by the BBC in such an open-ended way, and it's even more incredible that he thought it went well! What kind of a bubble do you have to live in to say things like "I don't sweat" and "It was a convenient place to stay", and think afterwards, "I really nailed that"? Well, we know what kind of bubble he lived in. The royal bubble is made of iron. Still, Prince Andrew has an entire PR team working for him. The PR people live in the real world, presumably, and know how to avoid hazards. Why would they allow this? Prince Andrew and his people strolled into the interview thinking it was a good idea, and the end result was described by Charlie Proctor, editor-in-chief of Royal Central, as "a plane crashing into an oil tanker, causing a tsunami, triggering a nuclear explosion level bad." "Scoop," an entertaining movie directed by Philip Martin , based on Sam McAlister 's book Scoops: Behind the Scenes of the BBC's Most Shocking Interviews , shows how it happened. Sam McAlister ( Billie Piper ) is a junior producer on BBC Newsnight, whose main job is booking the guests. She has a reputation for getting guests who were thought un-gettable. She's different from the serious-minded journalists surrounding her at the BBC. Her hair is bleached blonde, she dresses in tight leather clothes, and she's constantly dashing in and out of the office. The other journalists look down on her. She's not "one of them". " Erin Brockovich " covered identical territory. Sam gets a crazy idea. Prince Andrew, steeped in rumors and scandals for almost a decade due to his "friendship" with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein (still alive at this point), starts an "initiative" called Pitch Palace, to encourage "young entrepreneurs". There's an email address, an entryway to the notoriously close-mouthed "palace". Sam gives it a shot. She eventually makes contact with Amanda Thirsk ( Keeley Hawes ), Prince Andrew's closest aide. Amanda, surprisingly, is intrigued by the idea of the interview. But how to convince Andrew? How to convince Andrew's mum? Sam and Amanda circle each other warily, never agreeing to anything, keeping cards close to their chest. Everything changes when the news breaks of Epstein's suicide in August 2019. The scoop, when it comes, is Sam's. She asks specifically for Emily Maitlis ( Gillian Anderson ) to do the interview. Maitlis is a BBC newsreader and journalist, who sweeps through the offices, holding a whippet on a leash, far above the lowly concerns of her colleagues. She and Sam could not be more different from one another, but as the interview becomes a real possibility, the two women lean on each other. Emily has skills Sam does not, and vice versa. They make a powerful team. In between the frenzied behind-the-scenes action at the BBC, we watch Prince Andrew in his natural habitat, and it is not a pretty picture. Rufus Sewell plays Andrew as a bully and a little bit of a loser, a "mummy's boy" who vastly over-rates his own charisma. He may be able to "work" a room, but he is dense as fog in other respects. Palace staff have horror stories about "working for" Andrew, and there's a painful scene where he berates a terrified maid. Sewell's resemblance to Andrew is at times uncanny, particularly the voice. Andrew's is such a tinny royal voice, like air doesn't flow freely over the vocal cords. Sewell exudes Andrew's sense of confusion and irritation coming from his sense of superiority, his entire attitude an impatient "When will people stop making such a fuss about this whole Epstein business?" There's a propulsive force to every scene in "Scoop," with Sam propelling us forward as she stalks across lobbies and down hallways in her thigh-high boots. Presenting the entire BBC news organization as a bunch of bores without any good ideas is probably very unfair, but this is, essentially, an underdog story. Sam, the booking agent, the one nobody takes seriously, arranged the interview of the century. (In its own sly way, the film is a tribute to producers.) The interview is shown almost in full, with Anderson and Sewell perfectly capturing the extremely strange and tense atmosphere of the original. This time, though, we get to see the people behind the camera, the expressions on everyone's faces when they realize how poorly this is going. McAlister writers in her book that she was looking around at everybody else, shocked at the words coming out of the Prince's mouth. He can't have just said "I don't sweat", can he? Did that just happen? The events in "Scoop" are from the extremely recent past, and we've all seen the interview, so there may be no surprises here. The interest comes in the details. There's a small moment when Sam takes the bus home, exhausted, and looks at a group of teenage girls sitting at the front, laughing and chattering loudly. A look comes over Sam's face—thoughtful, sad, worried. It's obvious what she's thinking. Epstein's victims were that age. "Scoop" is so focused on "getting the story" that sometimes it's easy to forget what the story actually is. The real story isn't about some embarrassing interview given by a disgraced Prince. It's about the elite preying on the weak. "Scoop" doesn't use dialogue to get this across. It's all on Piper's face as she looks at those carefree teenage girls.

Sheila O'Malley

Sheila O'Malley received a BFA in Theatre from the University of Rhode Island and a Master's in Acting from the Actors Studio MFA Program. Read her answers to our Movie Love Questionnaire here .

Now playing

Marya E. Gates

Dad & Step-Dad

Carlos aguilar.

Problemista

Monica castillo.

Don't Tell Mom the Babysitter's Dead

Peyton robinson.

Film Credits

Scoop (2024)

102 minutes

Gillian Anderson as Emily Maitlis

Billie Piper as Sam McAlister

Rufus Sewell as Prince Andrew

Keeley Hawes as Amanda Thirsk

Romola Garai as Esme Wren

Richard Goulding as Stewart Maclean

Amanda Redman as Sam's Mother

Connor Swindells as Jae Donnelly

Lia Williams as Fran Unsworth

Charity Wakefield as Princess Beatrice

• Philip Martin
• Peter Moffat

Latest blog posts

Until It’s Too Late: Bertrand Bonello on The Beast

O.J. Simpson Dies: The Rise & Fall of A Superstar

Which Cannes Film Will Win the Palme d’Or? Let’s Rank Their Chances

Second Sight Drops 4K Releases for Excellent Films by Brandon Cronenberg, Jeremy Saulnier, and Alexandre Aja

In Flames tells a ghost story where men harass women from beyond the grave

• Written and directed by Zarrar Kahn
• Starring Ramesha Nawal, Omar Javaid, Bakhtawar Mazhar, Adnan Shah Tipu, Mohammad Ali Hashmi and Jibran Khan
• Classification N/A; 98 minutes
• Opens in theatres April 12

Critic’s pick

A young woman navigates her society’s suffocating toxic masculine energy. That’s the basic premise behind Zarrar Kahn’s Karachi-set horror thriller In Flames . But that could also describe about a dozen other movies that have come out in the past year, including the “go girl!” spectacle that was Barbie and its darker twin Poor Things ; the hair-raising workplace thrillers Fair Play and The Royal Hotel and the recent nunsploitation double bill of Immaculate and The First Omen .

In Flames – a ghost story where the men are so entitled, they continue to harass women from beyond the grave – finally joins the zeitgeist in theatres after kicking around the festival circuit for months.

Kahn’s debut feature premiered at Cannes last May, becoming the first film to come out of Telefilm Canada’s microbudget Talent To Watch program – a funding stream designed to discover new voices – to land at the fest. After that it picked up a few international laurels and became Pakistan’s official submission for the Academy Awards.

Too many movies on your to-watch list? Here are the best films of 2023

It only scored two nominations at the coming Canadian Screen Awards (for visual effects and first feature) – which, in my mind, says more about our voting bodies than what Kahn and his wondrous star, newcomer Ramesha Nawal, pull off.

Nawal plays Mariam, a willful college girl living in a tiny Karachi apartment with her kid brother and her mother (Bakhtawar Mazhar), a widow struggling to make ends meet. Like almost every lead in the so-called “elevated horror” trend (think movies such as The Babadook and Midsommar , which In Flames is certainly in league with) Mariam is traumatized. She’s haunted by memories of domestic violence, which at some point turns into an actual haunting. When she catches sight of men staring from a distance, we often can’t tell whether they are creepy spectres or just more of the rando creeps who terrorize her in the wild.

A still from In Flames, starring newcomer Ramesha Nawal. Handout

Mariam endures lewd acts, violent attacks and gaslighting by those who abuse whatever semblance of authority they hold. Even the guys eagerly trying to help her pose a threat, because white knighting comes with its own sense of entitlement and transactional opportunism. When Mariam’s asthma flares up, you know it’s because misogyny hangs thick in the atmosphere.

Kahn directs all this with a stranglehold on our nerves, only losing his grip during a final act where satisfying genre demands and reaching for a catharsis feels beyond the film’s reach. But its reach is mighty. Rarely do we see a debut feature make such spectacular use of a minuscule budget (though the horror genre is usually where directorial talents test what they can do with soundscape, elegant imagery and suggestion). I won’t soon forget what In Flames does with a motorcycle helmet’s reflective visor, the briefly glimpsed reflection of a truck and the lingering sound of its horn.

In Flames is written and directed by Zarrar Kahn. Handout

When In Flames premiered at Cannes last year, I compared it with Ari Aster’s Hereditary , but suggested Kahn’s film has more heart and conviction. I stand by that. Aster’s earlier movies often feel too preoccupied with chasing their influences – Stanley Kubrick, Nicolas Roeg and Roman Polanski – rather than rooting for their own characters. The women leading Hereditary and Midsommar go from helplessly suffering to embracing their agony.

In Flames doesn’t feel as oppressive because Mariam has the space to seek and experience joy despite her traumas. As a character, she’s more aligned with the women in the other inspirational movies that fill up Kahn’s vision board: Mati Diop’s soulful and achingly melancholic ghost story Atlantics and Jordan Peele’s Us .

Nawal smoothly sails between moments where Mariam’s fear is palpable, when she has the jittery physicality of a squirrel, and the little reprieves, when she’s feisty, charming and somehow willing to chase romance. Yes, romance, even when men – not just in this movie but all those others – have proven to be disappointments at best.

In the interest of consistency across all critics’ reviews, The Globe has eliminated its star-rating system in film and theatre to align with coverage of music, books, visual arts and dance. Instead, works of excellence will be noted with a critic’s pick designation across all coverage. (Television reviews, typically based on an incomplete season, are exempt.)

Report an editorial error

Report a technical issue

Editorial code of conduct

Interact with The Globe

The Definitive Voice of Entertainment News

Subscribe for full access to The Hollywood Reporter

site categories

After rick and michonne’s reunion, where will ‘the walking dead’ universe go next.

Following the conclusion of limited series 'The Ones Who Live,' the AMC zombie franchise is well positioned for its eventual 'Avengers: Endgame' moment.

By Josh Wigler

Josh Wigler

Contributor

• Share this article on Facebook
• Share this article on Twitter
• Share this article on Flipboard
• Share this article on Email
• Show additional share options
• Share this article on Linkedin
• Share this article on Pinit
• Share this article on Reddit
• Share this article on Tumblr
• Share this article on Whatsapp
• Share this article on Print
• Share this article on Comment

[This story contains spoilers from The Walking Dead : The Ones Who Live .]

Years after his presumed death, Rick Grimes is not only alive and well, but fully back in action.

Related Stories

'the walking dead' stars andrew lincoln and danai gurira explain spinoff's "amazingly emotional" ending, 'the walking dead' franchise's best characters, ranked.

All’s well that ends well, right? Just one problem: it ain’t over just yet.

While Lincoln, Gurira and franchise overseer Scott M. Gimple have all stopped short of promising another team-up in the future, the way  The Ones Who Live  ends not just opens the door for a follow-up, it all but kicks the door clean off the hinges. That’s because the Walking Dead universe has a lot of other things going on right now, much of which seems to thread back into the story of Rick Grimes.

Let’s start locally. The original  Walking Dead   ended with Alexandria joining up with the Commonwealth, a well-supported governing body now spearheaded by King Ezekiel (Khary Payton) and Mercer (Michael James Shaw). It’s a good thing Rick missed out on this entire era, because in Robert Kirkman and Charlie Adlard’s comic books, Sheriff Grimes’ time in the Commonwealth is…let’s say, unpleasant. Now that he’s back, however, there’s a sprawling new community waiting for him to explore.

That said, Rick learning the Commonwealth feels a good deal less interesting than Rick running into some old friends and foes, doesn’t it?

And that’s not even mentioning the Negan in the room. Jeffrey Dean Morgan ‘s baseball-bat-wielding antihero was Rick’s primary antagonist for Lincoln’s final run on the show, and they never really had the chance to close their story. Are the wounds still raw? Negan’s demonstrated some (emphasis on “some”) redemptive qualities, and Rick’s own children have soft spots for the former Savior, so it’s possible RJ and Judith could put in some work toward a healed rift between Rick and Negan.

The other option, of course, is for one of the men to kill the other. If anyone’s going to take Rick or Negan out, it’s going to be, well, Negan or Rick.

But RJ and Judith aren’t the only folks in Rick and Michonne’s lives who could vouch for Negan these days. It’s a stretch to call them “friends,” but in the final run of the show, Daryl ( Norman Reedus ) and Negan teamed together on multiple occasions, even working together to send Beta (Ryan Hurst) into the great beyond. If Rick and Daryl meet somewhere during an eventual reunion with Negan, the story could get all the more complicated.

What’s more, Rick has an entire arsenal at his disposal now. He’s not in charge of the Civic Republic, but in the final moments of  The Ones Who Live , a fleet of aircrafts drop off Rick and Michonne, completely changing the game when it comes to in-universe transportation. With the Civic Republic as an ally, combined with possible Commonwealth resources, the Alexandria crew’s ability to travel across the Atlantic suddenly opens all the way up. Not only are we likely to see some kind of major Walking Dead crossover at some point in time, but the way is wide open for it to take place in Europe, thanks to the gang’s new flyover capabilities.

While it’s not canonized on the show, there’s another element of Rick Grimes’ story that might connect him to Europe: his brother. A comic book called  The Walking Dead: The Alien , written by  Saga  creator Brian K. Vaughan, reveals Rick’s brother Jeffrey is in Spain when the zombie apocalypse begins. Some story elements would need to be remixed and remastered in order to get our Walking Dead regulars and Jeff Grimes in the same space, but it’s one of the lingering major events from the comic book canon that has yet to be translated to live action — and if the show finally cuts off Rick’s hand , a new story centering on Rick’s brother doesn’t feel so far-fetched.

THR Newsletters

Sign up for THR news straight to your inbox every day

More from The Hollywood Reporter

Ron weiner, emmy-winning director for ‘donahue,’ dies at 93, raquel lee bolleau says she has “nothing left” for hollywood after ‘quiet on set’ experience, ‘star trek: lower decks’ to end with season 5, ‘so you think you can dance’<em> </em>contestant<em> </em>posts aftermath of alleged knife and acid attack to instagram, varada sethu, millie gibson named companions in ‘doctor who’ second season photo, robert macneil, longtime pbs anchorman, dies at 93.

site categories

‘la casa de los famosos’ & ‘el señor de los cielos’ fuel telemundo’s primetime ratings success, breaking news.

‘The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon’ Teaser — Carol Kicks Butt In Season 2 Of Spinoff Series

By Denise Petski

Denise Petski

Senior Managing Editor

More Stories By Denise

• ‘Fallout’ TV Series Based On Games Gets New, Earlier Premiere Date On Prime Video
• Dan Fogelman’s Hulu Series Adds Four To Cast
• J.C. Mackenzie Signs With Artists & Representatives

Don’t mess with Carol. AMC Networks has released the first teaser for The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon — The Book of Carol . The clip, unveiled during last night’s Parish season premiere, features Melissa McBride ‘s Carol determined to find answers to her friend Daryl’s ( Norman Reedus ) whereabouts, no matter what it takes.

“Don’t move. Keep your guns down. Where is my friend?” Carol asks, armed with a crossbow.

In addition to Reedus and McBride, The Book of Caro l stars Clémence Poésy, Louis Puech Scigliuzzi, Laika Blanc Francard, Anne Charrier, Romain Levi and Eriq Ebouaney.

Series is executive produced by showrunner David Zabel, Scott M. Gimple, Reedus, McBride, Greg Nicotero, Angela Kang, Brian Bockrath, Daniel Percival, Jason Richman and Steve Squillante.

The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon — The Book of Carol premieres this summer on AMC and AMC+.

Check out the teaser trailer above.

Must Read Stories

Renewal status report: ‘l&o: organized crime’, ‘night court’, ‘lopez’, ‘extended family’.

Emma Stone In Talks To Lead In Untitled Universal Pic; Dave McCary Eyed To Direct

Daniel mays talks ‘franklin’, olivier nom & ‘juliet’ star’s treatment, walter hill on steve mcqueen, eddie murphy & ‘the warriors’: film that lit my fuse.

Subscribe to Deadline Breaking News Alerts and keep your inbox happy.

Read More About:

No comments.

Deadline is a part of Penske Media Corporation. © 2024 Deadline Hollywood, LLC. All Rights Reserved.