Carol, a lady with red lipstick and red nails, drops by a toy shop to buy her daughter a Christmas present.  She becomes friendly with the salesperson, Therese.  When they see each other, they can’t take their eyes off.  A day later, Carol invites Therese to her home for dinner.  Carol is in the middle of a divorce and Therese is involved in a relationship.  Whenever the two are together, they comfort each other as they detail their heartaches and sadness.  One day, Carol suggests traveling to Therese.

Red, Women and Love

Though there is an underlying presence of homosexuality in the film, Korean moviegoers gave it favorable reviews.  It received a 9 out of 10 last year, so this reporter decided to watch it.  After watching the movie, three words came to mind: red, women and love. 
The film has a wonderful red backdrop.  The film is set in the 1950s during the Christmas season in New York, Manhattan.  The film uses a lot of pastel colors, but it is Carol’s red lips, nails and clothes to match that make Carol seem so elegant and attractive.  Although the film is set in the 1950s, the two main characters are modern and attractive.  Sookmyungians when they watch the film should focus on this key aspect, the red color. 
‘Carol’ is all about women.  The main characters are women, Carol and Therese, and it discusses love from a woman’s perspective.  Ultimately, the two ladies choose independence over a life with a man and oppression.  Carol divorces her husband and gives up custody of her kids because she thinks that if she always denies herself in order to gain custody, she wouldn’t be a good mother or role model.  Therese also refuses her boyfriend’s marriage proposal because she wants to escape his self-centeredness.  For quite some time, she was denied any opportunity to make decisions for herself.  She hadn’t even ordered her own dish off a lunch menu.  Getting to know Carol empowered Therese to do what she wanted and liked. 
Finally, the last and most important key to this movie is love.  The film looks at how to love and what love is.  It was impressive to watch scenes of the two characters listening and respecting each other.  Even on their travel together, they were respectful, comforting, and consoling of each other’s pain and worries.  Today in a world of selfishness, the film shows audiences how to love and what love is, not who to love.

After Watching ‘Carol’

Frankly, the film dragged a bit in the middle, but I’ll only say this is because there were few spoken lines and most of the scenes were calm and sentimental.  The main characters expressed their situations in life through facial expressions and gestures than words.  Anyone who was interested in a film about females and their emotions and love will find the movie calm with a strong underlying message.