Watch out Oscar nominees, there’s a Cate Blanchett-starring romance coming on November 20 with Rooney Mara as her star-crossed lover.
A Cannes standout based on Patricia Highsmith’s novel The Price of Salt, Carol tells the tale of department store clerk, played by Mara, who falls in love with a socialite who is in the dregs of a loveless marriage with Kyle Chandler.
Set in the ’50s, the film depicts how the two women of different ages and social classes navigate a relationship in an era where lesbianism was barely even considered. Todd Haynes (Far from Heaven, I’m Not There) directed the film.
Haynes explained to Indiewire that Carol explores a ’50s culture which had no quarter for lesbianism, but condoned women being closer to their female friends than their male lovers.
“There’s weird codes, like two women deciding to live together in 1952 is easier than a man and a woman living together in 1952 who aren’t married,” said Haynes. “I felt this in Far from Heaven, that there’s actually more liberty, more freedom, in hiding, or following certain social conventions outside the common thinking that give strange permission for closeness.”
The above trailer, which was released in the UK today, shows just a glimpse of the relationship between the two women. My Foolish Heart, a song for a Mark Robson film of the same name, soundtracks the teaser (as reported to Deadline).
Emmy-nominated screenwriter Phyllis Nagy adapted the novel for the silver screen. Number 9 Films’ Elizabeth Karlsen and Stephen Woolley produced the film in association with Christine Vachon (Killer Films) and Film4. Carol will be released by The Weinstein Co. in the U.S.
Other upcoming projects for six-time Oscar nominee Blanchett, who previously won Academy Awards for her performances in The Aviator (2004) and Blue Jasmine (2013), include Terrence Malick’s Knight of Cups (2016), and Jungle Book: Origins (2017).
