Double Feature

June 2017 - Cate Blanchett is quickly becoming one of my favorite actresses. I say that with the knowledge that she's been making films for more than 20 years, but it's just now dawning on me how good she is.

Blanchett has earned seven Oscar nominations to date, with two wins. She earned her first nomination for her performance in 1998's Elizabeth, an R-rated drama about the early days of Queen Elizabeth I of England. Geoffrey Rush plays her loyal advisor and protector. Joseph Fiennes is the love of her life.

The movie begins with a young Elizabeth, in her pre-queen days, cavorting with Lord Robert Dudley (Fiennes). But, these are dangerous times, and fearing a plot, Queen Mary (Elizabeth's older half-sister) orders Elizabeth locked up in the tower. Soon though, Mary dies and the single and beautiful Elizabeth becomes Queen.

Ruling a country has its perks, but it also presents problems. In Elizabeth's case, those problems included political pressure to marry and produce an heir. She must also deal with tensions between the Catholics and Protestants. If the movie is to be believed, the Pope at the time gave his blessing to a plot to overthrow Elizabeth and sent a monk assassin (a pre-Bond Daniel Craig) to help get the job done.

Overall review: Liked it. Worth a look, but don't expect a docudrama. The film takes vast liberties with history. But, the movie looks great and is well-paced. Blanchett was nominated as Best Actress, but the Oscar went to Gwyneth Paltrow for Shakespeare in Love.

Blanchett's most recent Oscar nod came in 2016 for Carol, an R-rated romance set in the early 1950s and based on a novel by Patricia Highsmith. (The Best Actress Oscar went to Brie Larson for Room.) Co-star Rooney Mara was nominated as Best Supporting Actress. The film also received nominations for screenplay, music, costumes, and cinematography.

Blanchett stars as Carol Aird, a well-to-do housewife who lives in a big house in New Jersey, just outside New York City. That may sound great, but she's divorcing her husband (Kyle Chandler), in no small part because she had an affair a few years back with her best friend, Abby (Sarah Paulson). Caught in the middle is the couple's four-year-old daughter, Rindy.

About two weeks before Christmas, Carol goes to a department store in the city to buy a present for Rindy. That's where she meets the much younger Therese Belivet (Mara), a clerk at the store. Carol leaves her gloves behind. Therese returns them, and so begins a relationship that quickly turns into a love affair. But, the road to lasting love does not run smoothly. Carol must deal with the conventions of the time and Therese must figure out what she really wants.

Overall Review: Liked it. The score is fabulous; the performances are nuanced; the costumes and the cinematography are great. The dialogue is spare but exquisite.

Having said that, character development is lacking, especially for Therese but even to some extent for Carol. Fair or not, I can't help but think that Carol could have been great instead of just good if Anthony Minghella had been around to direct it. Minghella, who died in 2008 at just 54 years old, won an Oscar for directing The English Patient in 1996. Three years later, he directed Blanchett in The Talented Mr. Ripley, another film based on a novel by Highsmith and set in the 1950s. The opening shot of Carol seemed very much like one that Minghella might have chosen, and his talent for slowly unmasking characters until their true selves are revealed would have served this film well.