In a recent essay for Christianity Today, “Why Pop Culture is Obsessed with Identity,” film critic Alissa Wilkinson notes that despite the American tendency to value individuality and independence, it’s only through community that we truly understand ourselves. “We were made to know our true selves in relationships,” Wilkinson writes, going on to quote Catholic philosopher Charles Taylor: “No one acquires the languages needed for self-definition on their own. We are introduced to them through exchanges with others who matter to us.”
Among the list of films and TV shows this year dedicated to identity — racial, cultural, economic, spiritual, and sexual — we can add Todd Haynes’ beautiful Carol. The film, set in 1950s New York, is an exercise in intimately detailed, personal storytelling. It’s a story of love thwarted by circumstance, in which two women learn important truths about themselves through their relationship to each other, and how that relationship impacts the other people in their lives.
Therese Belivet (Rooney Mara) first encounters Carol Aird (Cate Blanchett) at a department store. Therese is a shopgirl. Carol is a wealthy, soon-to-be divorced socialite who solicits her advice on a gift for her young daughter. Therese is blank, inexperienced in life and unsure of what she wants. Carol’s privileged life and unfulfilling marriage have made her used to getting what she wants, and unaware of the impacts her behavior has on others.
When they first meet, both women still have much growing to do.
But the women are drawn to each other — Carol to Therese’s otherworldly quality, and Therese to Carol’s confidence. Their romantic relationship is threatened by Carol’s possessive, jealous ex-husband-to-be (Kyle Chandler), who believes his wife’s lifestyle is immoral.
Through this conflict, Therese and Carol realize what they mean to each other. They learn to consider the emotional needs of others, and how to direct their own lives, instead of simply allowing other people (particularly men) to determine what happens to them. By the end of the film, neither woman’s journey is complete, but each has made important strides.
Director Haynes and writer Phyllis Nagy (working from Patricia Highsmith’s novel The Price of Salt) understand that cinema, just like all forms of storytelling, is a window into someone else’s personal life. They tell the story of Therese and Carol’s relationship in such exquisitely realized detail, down even to the smallest carpet-fiber, that you almost feel as if you’re there yourself. When the world the characters inhabit feels so real, their experiences and emotions feel real, too — helped in large part by perfectly-pitched performances by Blanchett and Mara.
Though much of Carol highlights the sexism and rigid social expectations of the time, it’s not a preachy film. It’s dramatic, certainly, but on a small scale, not a large scale. Carol is a film about a lesbian relationship, but the emphasis here is on the importance of relationships of all kinds — not just romantic — in informing identity. The film reminds us that those we choose to care for, and how we care for them, shapes how we understand the world, and the role God has for each of us in it.
Abby Olcese is a freelance film critic and writer based in Missouri. You can find her on Twitter @abbyolcese.
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