Dueling duets

‘Carol’ and ‘Youth’ are sumptuous achievements

2015 was a good year for women—in mainstream cinema, at least. It was the continuation of an encouraging trend, a welcome pushback to the very real perception that films historically favor men, their stories, and their hegemony over the industry. It was a good year for the Bechdel Test. 

Charlize Theron enraged men’s rights activists (a pointless form of life), becoming an instant action star in “Mad Max: Fury Road.” Daisy Ridley was crowned a hero to millions of girls thanks to “Star Wars.” Mila Kunis gave the action-hero thing a shot, too, with the awful “Jupiter Ascending.” Jennifer Lawrence brought a fierce echo of Norma Rae to the otherwise middling “Joy.” Amy Schumer wrote and starred in the hit comedy “Trainwreck.” 

Alas, progress is incremental, and all of the aforementioned films are directed by men (with the exception of Lana Wachowski, who co-directed “Jupiter Ascending” with her brother).

A man helms “Carol,” too, but it’s something of a different animal due to the predilections and sensitivity of its director, Todd Haynes. 

Like Haynes’ Oscar-nominated “Far From Heaven” (2002), “Carol” is a period melodrama whose DNA is made up of the director’s 21st-century concerns with identity politics. The Douglas Sirk-inspired “Heaven” focused on a taboo interracial relationship in 1950s Connecticut. His newest focuses on a taboo lesbian relationship in 1950s New York. In the year of legalized gay marriage, “Carol’s” story of two closeted women finding love amidst the patriarchal purity of midcentury America achieves a fulfilling poignancy. 

Carol (Cate Blanchett) is a beautiful, well-to-do wife and mother who falls in love at first sight with Therese (Rooney Mara), a department store clerk and aspiring photographer. Carol is in a custody battle with her husband, Harge (Kyle Chandler), while Therese is diffident to the marriage advances of her beau, Richard (Jake Lacy). Their forbidden orbits threaten to destroy both of their comfortable yet discontented worlds.

“Carol” is an elegant, sensual film. Haynes captures expert performances against a period setting vividly rendered by a flawless production design. He exhibits an eye for composition that’s as exacting as David Fincher’s, while infusing every shot with stately warmth, his characters tangible in the context of their time. It’s something of a parlor drama, and your mileage for such may vary. But “Carol” has the feel of a particularly comfortable, mink-lined leather glove, scented by tobacco and Chanel No. 5.

That would have little meaning if it weren’t for the performances, and the relevance of the story Haynes tells. Shifting mores, or even laws, can’t predicate how people treat each other. 

Personifying the erupting desires of a kept woman, Blanchett is typically unforgettable. She’s offered a Faustian choice: ignore who you are, be the woman that’s expected, and all is forgiven. Or be yourself and lose everything. 

Kyle Chandler, who every second looks like the Eisenhower-era programmed, nuclear-family conformist, is sympathetically great as Harge. Rooney Mara is the Audrey Hepburn of the trifecta, a youthful contrast to Carol who has yet to become stuck in the quagmire of her compulsions. They transport us into their lives and worlds through the lens of their own—and  Haynes’—unerring excellence. 

All of that to say: “Carol” is among the best films of 2015.

"Youth," the second English-language film from Italian writer/director Paolo Sorrentino (“This Must Be the Place”), had me at Michael Caine and Harvey Keitel. I could watch those two talk about going to a yarn festival (those actually exist) for two hours and be entertained. 

That “Youth” is beautifully acted, written, directed, and boasts a sumptuous, sophisticated visual palate is also helpful.  

Fred Ballinger (Caine) is the lifelong best friend of Mick Boyle (Keitel). Fred is a retired conductor of great renown, while Mick is a filmmaker writing a movie for a long-time collaborator (Jane Fonda), but whose best work is behind him. Frank and Mick are on a week-long vacation at an ultra-swanky spa in the Swiss Alps, reminiscing about their lives and comparing notes on the physical indignities that come with old age.

The spa is inhabited by some unusual patrons, including a typecast actor, Jimmy Tree (Paul Dano) who becomes fascinated by Fred; a catastrophically overweight footballer who always seems on the verge of death by exercise (Roly Serrano); a young masseuse (Luna Mijovic), and a cadre of nerdy screenwriters who hang on Mick’s every word (Tom Lipinski, Chloe Pirrie, Alex Beckett, Nate Dern, and Mark Gessner). And also, Miss Universe (Madalina Ghenea). Because, Europe.

Fred and his daughter Lena (Rachel Weisz, who is Fred’s personal assistant and also married to Mick’s philandering son) are fending off the advances of the Queen as the royal family’s emissary (Alex Macqueen) attempts to coax Fred out of retirement to conduct his masterpiece, “Simple Songs.” Fred steadfastly—and somewhat mysteriously (considering his utter Britishness would seem to demand it)—refuses the offer.

Sorrentino instills almost every scene with multiple layers of meaning. The relationship between Frank and Mick is unerringly genuine, as if these two really have known each other for 40 years. They commiserate over long lost women (and who stole whose), their failing facilities (“Maybe we’ll take a piss tomorrow?”), and the significance of the evermore-fleeting time they’ve spent together.    

Like a tesseract, the wistfully humane script melds mirth, sexiness, and heartbreak into concentric layers of emotion and profundity. Sorrentino executes his script with the confidence of a master, finding visual and narrative juxtapositions around every corner that contrast the natures of youth, beauty, life, death, and time. His artful visual polish (helped by some gorgeous scenery, Miss Universe notwithstanding) wraps the whole affair with an expertly knotted bow.

Rachel Weisz is typically adept and lovely, while Dano brings an easy charm that negates the goofy fake mustache and proto-hipster affectations of his existentialist Jimmy Tree. Jane Fonda drops the hammer on the proceedings, somewhat channeling her role from “The Newsroom” during a come-to-Jesus moment about the realities of the modern film industry.   

But like I said, Caine and Keitel. I have no idea how long these two have known each other, and obviously it doesn’t matter since they are both consummate thespians, but with their chemistry, it feels like they’re barely acting. We feel all the import of their influential lives and what they bring to their friendship, and what they offer to the ephemeral souls around them. They aren’t irrelevant. Yet.

“Youth” reminds us that time and emotion are all we ever really have.

For more opinions from Joe, read his review of The Revenant.