Disappointing lesbian romantic drama based on a Patricia Highsmith novel, CAROL is the latest lush life Fifties fueled film from Todd Haynes, who gave us the more satisfying Sirk styled Far From Heaven a few years back. Indeed, CAROL feels like the symbiotic twin sibling to that robust and ravishing movie about same sex identity and race relations.

Still, CAROL is a distinctly gorgeous looking film. Ed Lachman, the Director of Photography, who was Oscar nominated for Far From Heaven shot on Super 16 millimetre which made it look like it was 35 millimetre in that time period. Having worked with Haynes before on Mildred Pierce and Far From Heaven, both period films, Lachman’s lensing is luscious and luminous, and by referencing certain mid-century photographers in frame and focus finding a visual verisimilitude in look and lustre.

Sandy Powell helped create Haynes’ and Lachman’s vision as the Costume Designer of CAROL, a role she reprises after the wonderful wardrobe she conjured for Far From Heaven. She took a naturalistic approach to dressing them as she said, “My job was to help create the characters and make them believable to each other and audiences. I wanted Carol to be fashionable, but understated— somebody a character like Therese would look up to and be impressed by as well.” This is the second time this year Sandy has dressed Cate Blanchett, previously producing the clobber for Cinderella. Aside fact, Sandy won an Oscar for dressing Cate in The Aviator, the film which scored Cate her first Academy Award.

Production Designer, Judy Becker, chose to work with a very specific color palette that was based on the colors used in the early 1950s. The film really emphasised, especially in the interiors, the sour greens, yellows, and dirty pinks of the era— slightly soiled colours that give the viewer the feeling of the post-war city America. Becker was Oscar nominated for her work recreating another modern era in American Hustle and her detailed eye scores a bull in CAROL.

The performances played in this paint box are equally terrific, with Cate Blanchett as the married for money mummy, Carol, dutifully trying to satisfy the status of the stable family whilst subjugating her Sappho self, and Rooney Mara as Therese, the shop girl and budding photographer who falls for her, pursues her, and is the catalyst of a catastrophic custody battle.

When Carol’s estranged husband, Harge, played by Kyle Chandler, discovers his wife has gone away with Therese, he hires a private investigator to document the couples’ “immoral” behaviour. Carol’s suspicions grow as the private investigator weaves his way into their journey on the road, exploiting Carol and Therese’s first romantic encounter together. Outraged, Carol knows Harge has plotted against her to build his case in court and win custody of their daughter. This sequence of the film is high Highsmith country and Haynes directs it exquisitely.

The screenplay by Phyllis Nagy is text book adaptation, taking a prose novel and fashioning it into a dramatic visual medium.

With so much that is excellent, CAROL’s failures fall squarely on its length. Tipping two hours tends to trip too much the longuer fantastic, the eye lashed gaze through raindrop dappled windows. But if this is failure, then let’s hope the cinematic year is strewn with them. It may well be that CAROL is one of those films that get better with each viewing, eschewing the excessive run time.

Todd Haynes’ CAROL starts in cinemas this Thursday.