It’s Christmas Eve and this is tradition. Or it will be, starting this year.
I was just watching, you know, and it suddenly hit me: the character development of this movie is astonishing. I mean, the entire story hinges on you, as the audience member, believes that Carol would do anything for her daughter. Otherwise, her leaving Therese just seems cruel and cold, and you would never buy her “love” at the end of the film. And, of course, Carol’s entire character hinges around the fact that she loves her daughter.
So the question is, how do Todd Haynes and Phyllis Nagy develop this? This is the question of Carol. How do you get it so that even though Rindy has about 5 minutes of screen time, the audience buys that Carol loves her more than anything in her life? Sure, you can have her say it, which Carol does in the lawyer scene (“I would have locked myself away, done anything, to keep Rindy with me.”) And you might think its obvious– well, of course a mother loves her daughter. But setting this up is integral for the rest of the film. You can’t just rely on the audience making assumptions for you. That leaves plot holes and character arcs that feel unfinished. Plus, when you’re using the visual medium of film, you never tell when you can show. And that’s when it hit me. Rindy is the reason why Carol and Therese weren’t able to stay together the first time, but she is also the reason they got together in the first place. And I know this might seem obvious, but I really need to make an entire post about how Haynes and Nagy managed to make us care. I think this is really where the movie trumps the book for me. In the book, Carol is distant, so even her love for Rindy doesn’t feel as visceral as it does in the film, and that changes my entire perspective on their love. In the book, it just feels like Carol is tired and wants to get back with Therese because, who knows. In the movie, when Cate Blanchett tells Rooney Mara she loves her, I believe that.
First, you have Carol and Therese meet because Carol is Christmas shopping for none other than Rindy. She could’ve been shopping for anyone else, literally anyone else, and it wouldn’t have meant so much and built so much character for Carol, because in this one little scene, we get that Carol loves her daughter enough to be randomly carrying around a photo of her. I don’t know if this was commonplace in the 50s, but I know that for audience members of the 21st century, where we all have thousands of photos on our phone, printing out a photo to carry it signalizes a good deal of significance, so knowing that Carol carries around a photo of Rindy, if nothing else, makes it clear to audience members now that she loves her daughter.
And then you have the scene where Carol is basically made to go to a function with Harge. That scene starts with Carol brushing her daughter’s hair, then coloring with Harge and Rindy. Knowing that Rindy is there, you can tell that Carol cares about her daughter simply because she obviously doesn’t want to go to Harge’s function, but she is willing to go just to avoid him making a scene in front of Rindy. It is also this scene that helps you understand why Carol would give up what she has with Therese to go back to fight for Rindy– Carol treads so carefully in front of Rindy in this one scene that you can’t help but think it makes sense that she would literally drop everything to fight for her daughter. This scene is just a less high stake version of that.
After this, even in the scenes that Rindy isn’t explicitly in, she’s present, in Carol talking about it with Abby, with Fred, crying about it with Therese, there is not a single moment, before the trip, that Carol spends not thinking, in some way about her daughter.
I know this is a really small thing to notice, but this entire way that Rindy is constantly present and the way that Carol’s character is built through this is exactly what makes Carol a good film. At its core, Carol isn’t just a film about love and romance, it’s also about motherhood, and its love and romance hinges on the basis of motherhood. It doesn’t work if we as the audience don’t buy Carol as a good, loving mother. And if Carol had been just another, boring, gay film, it would have told us instead of showing, through the smallest moments and the smallest moments, that Carol loves her daughter more than anything. This is what makes a good film: the ability to show, not tell, and Carol does this beautifully.
Merry Christmas, everyone, and happy holiday (Carol) season to everyone who celebrates!
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