Carol (2015)My love affair with Carol began a long time ago, before the film was even made. A friend gave me a copy of Patricia Highsmith’s The Price of Salt (the book on which Carol is based) with a knowing smile and told me I might like it. She wasn’t wrong. I loved it: devouring it in one sitting and then immediately turning back to the first page to read it again. Highsmith’s writing is instinctually cinematic and I remember thinking all those years ago that this needed to be made into a film. I desperately wanted to see Carol and Therese’s love affair on the big screen, and I fervently hoped for the right creative team to come along and make my wish come true. Because Carol needed to be flawless as a film – my love for the book would accept nothing less…
Well, I needn’t have worried. With Todd Haynes at the helm and Cate Blanchett the perfect Carol (I’d always pictured Cate when I read the book!) how could it falter? Watching it is like seeing the pages of Highsmith’s novel come to life, more exquisitely than I could have imagined. It made me fall in love with the story and the characters all over again. And just like with the book, I revisit Carol as often as I can.
Emma Smart
Head of Library and Mediatheque