Todd Haynes
2015
118 minutes
Like Die Hard before it, Carol is a Christmas film. It's in the name. It's in the setting. You can tell that this film is just yearning to become a beloved Christmas movie for the whole family to enjoy. You can't wait to quote some of the most famous lines during your next White Elephant gift exchange ("I took what you gave willingly. It's not your fault, Therese!")
There are some boobs in this movie though, so there's at least one scene you might want to skip if your family isn't into that sort of thing. It's not as vulgar as anything in Bad Santa, but it's pretty lengthy. You note to yourself that you can fast forward it if your younger nieces and nephews are around, or if it's just adults present you can always get up and make some egg nog so you don't have to watch it with your parents or in-laws.
Unlike other Todd Haynes films, this one doesn't feature any spanking in it, for better or for worse. It's based on a Patricia Highsmith novel, which probably lacked any such scene, so maybe he didn't feel like shoehorning it in. You recall that there was a spanking scene in the Mildred Pierce miniseries, but upon further research that was apparently in the novel as well. You shrug it off and decide that if you really need to see two grown women spanking each other, there are better sources for that than Oscar-snubbed historical romance dramas.
You are tempted to pause the movie, which is a bit slow-paced and boring for a Todd Haynes film, to go seek out those sources. But then you decide it's best to just push through to the bittersweet end. By the time you get there, this whim has at least temporarily passed and you're ready to nourish your soul with another nutritious movie.
Time to choose something different: