Carol (2015)

Older, well-off, married woman meets a wide-eyed young shopgirl and they’re drawn to each other. Though separated from her husband, he's not having it & threatens to take away their child if she doesn’t shape up.

To get this out of the way: yes, it’s terrible the way it used to be. The fact that sexual preference could be used as evidence of unfit for parenting is sickening as is the assumption that psychotherapy would be necessary for those attracted to the same sex. But change happens because we care about the people being hurt. Why are gays no longer maligned by non-mouth-breathers? Because we became aware that people we knew and loved were gay & always had been. We learned homosexuality is not an obscure/fearsome thing -- it's all around us.

So the weight of this story felt ill-served by the characters: a personality-free blank of a girl and a lofty ice goddess. Sure, blank ingenues and frigid matriarchs deserve the freedom to screw whom they want, but they’re not interesting subjects for a movie.

C