Thighs Wide Shut

Carol
Shopgirl Meets World
Official Website | Trailers & Mo
R | 118 min

Love me some Todd Haynes.  Love how he can make a movie look like an Edward Hopper painting.  He obviously tries to do that time and time again, and I applaud him, and he’s so good at doing it, and cause Edward Hopper is my favorite artist ever, and he should be yours too.  The thing that makes Edward Hopper’s paintings so incredible, and unforgettable – is the sense of quiet, loneliness, and emptiness.  Unfortunately, for Haynes’ latest – Carol – it feels a lot too empty

Carol is based on the The Price of Salt by Patricia Highsmith.  Highsmith is no stranger to Hollywood – having many of her works adapted for the big screen – and with great artistic and cinematic success – notably Hitchcock’s Strangers On A Train (one of my all time favs) and Anthony Minghella’s The Talented Mr. Ripley (one of the late 90s best movies).  Most of her books deal with homosexuality, either overtly, or subtly.  I wouldn’t know for sure, since I don’t know how to read, but take my word for it – she loves the gay stuff

Carol is about two women – one young and naive, and the other older, jaded and about to be divorced – and how they cross paths and hearts, and touch boobs.  The younger one is Rooney Mara, and the elder one is Cate Blanchett.  Blanchett does her thing – that elegant socialite thing I feel like she can do in her sleep.  She’s kinda like the woman she was in that Woody Allen movie, but maybe a little more together, and a lot more 1950s looking.  Mara does her Rooney thing, which is to stare blankly into space with those cold blue eyes, and make those Disney’s Ichabod Crane faces she makes (and looks exactly like in general)

I don’t get Rooney Mara.  I mean, she knows how to act (they don’t show her flubbing her lines), but I don’t get her.  She’s not really that attractive (not important, but kinda is – these are women we talking about), or even all that amazing of an actress.  I wonder what her sister Kate thinks.  She’s like – step off b!tch – I’ve been acting since 1997, and you, only since 2005, and you got an Oscar nom, and I got to be in that Fantastic Four remake no one saw.  Well, in Carol, Rooney’s like the main character, and she’s mainly blaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh and blank and zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.  The movie kinda is too.  IT ALL LOOKS SOOOO FCUKING AMAZING (to look at), but feels very empty, too empty, so empty, empty like a pocket – like the emptiest empty of all time. There are screen emotions going on – and we want these two ladies to make it work – but the emotions are left onscreen, and never transferred themselves to me.  You want a love story that will tear you apart?  Watch Love Story.  If you want a bore story, watch Carol

If only Carol were a painting, and hung in a museum – where it belongs – then it would be a masterpiece.  As a movie – it’s an Edward Hopper painting that’s not much of a movie – a ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZsterpiece

Verdictgo: Sum Merit But No Stinkin Badgers

Carol leZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZies it up in limited release tomorrow

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…