Review of Carol

An oddly soulless film, given that it was supposed to be about a forbidden and taboo love affair between two women (one older, one younger) in 1950s New York. Rooney Mara looks like a young Audrey Hepburn, Cate Blanchett looks like some kind of alien - her face just isn't put together right. And although she manages to convey feeling between herself and her daughter, and even between herself and her not-loved husband, there doesn't seem to be any feeling between Carol and the young Therese.

The film is beautiful to look at, though. It's dominated by long lingering shots of things, which are beautifully depicted and very evocative. There's a shot of a camera being loaded with 35mm film, which is already more alien to many people than writing with a quill pen. We also see Therese developing a film in a darkroom, which reminded me of doing the same thing with my dad in our kitchen - does anyone recognize those smells nowadays? There are shots of Therese playing records on a huge wooden gramophone - kids today would recognize a turntable and a needle/cartridge/arm because vinyl is still alive, but what was the point of such a huge piece of furniture to host a record deck? In the unlikely event that we had gramophones now, they'd be flatpack and made out of MDF - but this was clearly something made by skilled cabinet-maker...another thing that more or less doesn't exist now.

Lots of fabulous clothes, and textures - of walls, tables, payphones. Everything was so big in the 1950s - cars, steering wheels and gear sticks (with big white balls on the end). Suitcases. Bedsteads - even though the beds themselves looked rather small - when did the King Size bed arrive?

The score is quite wonderful too; I was convinced it was by Philip Glass as I watched the film, but it's not - it's just very much like his work.

Watched on Amazon Prime on our new clever TV....two Amazon Prime films in two days. It does seem to have more good stuff than Netflix.