Team Experience is counting down our 15 most anticipated. Here's Matthew Eng with our #1 choice, which incidentally also topped this list last year when we used wishful thinking to pretend it would be done early...
Who & What: Living genius Todd Haynes directs playwright and Mrs. Harris scribe Phyllis Nagy’s adaptation of Patricia Highsmith’s gently subversive lesbian novella (originally published under the much grittier-named The Price of Salt) about a sensitive shopgirl (Rooney Mara) who falls in love with the lonely society dame of the title (Cate Blanchett) in lush 1950s New York.
Why We’re Excited About it: The cinematic “comeback” of Haynes, returning to the big screen a full eight years after I’m Not There (despite a six-hour pit stop at HBO for Kate Winslet’s Mildred Pierce), is obviously incentive enough. But he’s also compiled a cast so charismatic, it basically makes you salivate: Mara and Blanchett, of course, but how about Ace Team Player and Perpetual Dreamboat Kyle Chandler as Blanchett’s snooping husband?
Lots more and several photos after the jump...
the cast of characters
Or Supporting Actress Extraordinaire Sarah Paulson as Blanchett’s confidante? Or how about undersung Obvious Child Prince Charming Jake Lacy as Mara’s clingy boyfriend and Sleater-Kinney/Portlandia roundabout woman Carrie Brownstein as someone named Genevieve Cantrell?
That’s a well-cast bunch if there ever was one but then there’s also DP Edward Lachman, who has shown such dazzling finesse with the various period Americana of Far From Heaven, I’m Not There, and The Virgin Suicides, not to mention the totally different milieus of Ulrich Seidl’s Paradise trio; miraculous costume maven Sandy Powell, a designing goldmine unto herself, who has made every single stitch and seam we’ve glimpsed only in stills look so mouthwatering; and the despicably un-Oscared (not to mention un-nominated!) Carter Burwell, lending another of his gorgeously moody scores to the proceedings. And having read Carol in the year since I wrote up its #1 post for last year’s We Can’t Wait countdown, I’m even more excited for a risky, tough-minded love story between two women that thinks and feels so deeply for its characters and considers their interiors with such carefulness and contemplation, without relying on any toxic twists or treacherous lesbian harpy-killers.
Costumes by Sandy Powell. Might she get two Oscar nominations this year for this and Cinderella?
What if it all Goes Wrong? I refuse to acknowledge this as a possibility. Even Mildred, surely the most uneven effort in Haynes’ oeuvre, is an admirably layered, technically sophisticated, and memorably sad-eyed rendering of a story inherently rooted in lurid pulp. Every other Haynes picture is an expertly-acted, visually spellbinding, tonally impeccable, and stunningly multifaceted masterpiece. Maybe I’m jinxing Carol by having zero qualms about her, but I genuinely can’t help it. These filmmakers’ lesser efforts are often more invigorating than the “bests” of many others. And, honestly, anyone who has bestowed Carol White and Cathy Whittaker upon this earth can do little wrong in my book. Todd Haynes has proven time and time again that he is heaven, personified.
When: Haynes himself revealed on Indiewire’s Playlist podcast that the film is likely headed for a spring premiere (aka: Cannes) and since The Weinstein Co. is distributing, there’s no way this won’t be the most sumptuous, period-specific stocking stuffer you’ll ever receive.