Once the calendar reaches Thanksgiving, I’m always looking for films that ignite the warm feel of Christmas. That’s when Carol comes into my mind because it takes a bittersweet melodrama that’s not a story you want to revisit annually and encases it in one of the best-looking, most evocative Christmas movies ever made. Imagine the same story being told in the cold, bleak winter of Fargo, it would be suffocating. Instead we get an amazingly detailed recreation of the period that would warm and freeze the heart of Douglas Sirk, an idol of Todd Haynes who was the master of this kind of storytelling.
Set in New York City in the early 1950s, the production settled on Cincinnati, OH as the best current location to take us into the past. The sets were designed by Judy Becker (The Brutalist) and decorated by Heather Loeffler (American Hustle). The Oscar-nominated Costumes were by Sandy Powell (who was Oscar nominated against herself for Cinderella.) Everything is lit by Edward Lachman. Also Oscar nominated, Lachman’s previous nom was for 2003’s Far From Heaven, and earlier Sirk-esque film by Haynes.
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