When shy department store worker Therese (Rooney Mara) meets the glamourous Carol (Cate Blanchett), who is shopping for her daughter’s Christmas present, her life is changed forever. Initially intrigued, she soon becomes infatuated. Their blossoming relationship will bring Therese into the middle of Carol’s messy divorce from her husband (Kyle Chandler), and into conflict with the prejudices of 1950s America. But is her romance with the mysterious Carol the real thing?
One of the great love stories in modern cinema, Todd Haynes’ ravishing queer romance is both a gorgeous period drama and a slyly contemporary commentary on the untold stories lying beneath its glossy 1950s surfaces. Perfectly realised though Edward Lachman’s stunning cinematography, this adaptation of Patricia Highsmith’s The Price of Salt (written for the screen by Phyllis Nagy) is, like Haynes’ 2002 masterpiece Far From Heaven, a story of star crossed love and rippling eroticism. Carried by phenomenal lead performances and a sense of aching possibility, Carol is as moving as it is beautiful.