""Carol" is an excellent movie with one major negative aspect and two minor quibbles but more about those later. There is no finding fault with the cast as Cate Blanchett a wealthy married woman seeking a divorce from her husband Kyle Chandler. Blanchett  has previously had an affair with Sarah Paulson, a school friend, and is now embarking on an affair with young, not rich, department store clerk, Rooney Mara. The latter is going with a dapper, rich, sort of snobbish boy played by Jake Lacey, though it is Blanchette who buys her the expensive camera she needs to further her pursuit of a career as a photographer. There is also John Magaro a poor, nice guy who works at the New York Times who might be able to help Mara get a job there but he also has feelings for her. Along with the minor figures in "Carol" each and every performer gives their best and in the case of Blanchett, Mara and Chandler that is high praise indeed.

The director Todd Haynes, the screenwriter Phyllis Nagy, the perfect production design by Judy Becker, the camera work by Ed Lachman along with the costumes by Sandy Powell and the period music by Carter Burwell bring us a perfect picture of the early 1950s. Not only do we see the right cars like Blanchette's Packard and her full length creamy mink coat but the streets of New York, the Oak Room of the Plaza hotel but even more important the morality of that time regarding homosexuality and the blackmail that can ensue even from people who love you. Though wealth and class levels are brought forward they are done in subtle ways still getting the message across.

There is nothing salacious or predatory about the older woman/younger woman really drifting into an affair with the older woman being who she is and the younger woman finding out who she is. Blanchett and Mara are completely believable in this journey they are taking together.

Now we come to the negative aspect and the quibbles mentioning the latter first. It is very perplexing considering her love for her child that Blanchett would allow her child to be driven by Chandler who is drunk. Another 'driving' incident is that though we know they are wealth there is never any hint, suggestion, showing that they have a chauffeur though we do see the other household staff and yet in another scene we see Chandler stepping into the rear of a car and being driven away. Petty? Quibbling? Possibly but this is part of the negative aspect that found my very disappointing in "Carol". I am a sucker for a love story, whether it be between opposite or same sex couples, and yet, in spite of their top rate performances, and even their non-threatening sex scene, I felt nothing for this couple. I didn't, couldn't, find myself rooting for them.

It is because of this feeling, this lack of being emotionally involved with what was going on in the film I find myself in a very small minority and would only recommend "Carol" if you have a 'thing' for the early 1950s!

"CAROL"--movie trailer https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EH3zcuRQXNo