The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Arts
Friday, Janurary 8, 2016 — 5
Stunning ‘Carol’
Timely drama is a
great movie and an
important one
By CHLOE GILKE
Daily Arts Writer
During a pivotal scene in the
10 p.m. showing of “Carol” that
I attended last Sunday, I heard
a tinny pair of
giggles
com-
ing from the
row behind me.
Initially, I was
annoyed. Why
was
someone
laughing
dur-
ing this gor-
geous
scene,
hee-heeing
at
the consumma-
tion of the blossoming emotional
affair between the film’s pro-
tagonists? How could two people
in the same theater as me occupy
such a different position than I
did — how could they be laugh-
ing at lesbians? I turned around
and gave my best Clint Eastwood
glare at the couple behind me. It
was two women, holding hands
and wearing the same raptured
smile I had a minute earlier.
“Carol” is both a great movie
and an important one. The film,
based on Patricia Highsmith’s
“The Price of Salt,” details the
emotional affair between the
moody, compelling Carol Aird
(Cate
Blanchett,
“Blue
Jas-
mine”) and naive department
store employee Therese Belivet
(Rooney Mara, “The Girl with
the
Dragon
Tattoo”).
Since
“Carol” is set in the early 1950s,
their relationship proceeds in a
different manner than it would
today: Queerness is the ultimate
taboo, a symbol of moral devi-
ance. Everything has to happen
in secret, everyone who wants to
be well regarded in society must
operate behind closed doors. The
notion of “being in the closet”
doesn’t even apply, because for
Carol and Therese, there is no
alternative on the other side of
that door.
But if you’re expecting a
tragic queer melodrama à la
“The Normal Heart” or “Broke-
back Mountain,” prepare to be
disappointed. As directed by
Todd Haynes (“I’m Not There”),
“Carol” is undeniably sweet,
offering plenty of moments of
levity, maybe even some worth a
giggle. Blanchett’s performance
as Carol is delectable, especial-
ly the way she initially dances
around her attraction to Therese:
saying “I like your hat” during
their department store meet-
cute,
pronouncing
Therese’s
name like it’s a line of poetry.
Blanchett’s sophistication and
boldness drives the narrative for-
ward, winning Therese’s affec-
tions and eventually our own. It’s
hard to watch this movie and not
fall in love with Carol Aird.
“Carol” ’s cinematography and
production design are due credit
for the film’s dreamy, roman-
tic mood. Cinematographer Ed
Lachman (a frequent collabo-
rator with Haynes) frames the
two actresses in intimate close-
ups, often focusing on a single
body part — Carol’s electric pink
nails, Therese’s blue eyes. In a
film about lesbian romance, the
female characters’ preoccupa-
tion with other women’s bod-
ies is a subversion of the typical
“male gaze” formula of looking
at women’s bodies. Carol and
Therese are discovering one
another, and it makes sense that
Therese would be looking so
carefully at Therese — she is a
photographer and artist, after all.
The set design and art direction
are likewise intricate and beau-
tiful, especially the visual paral-
lels between Therese and Carol’s
six-year-old daughter. (Both have
short brunette hair and bangs
and are dressed frequently in
primary colors and jewel tones.)
This is the kind of movie you can
watch over and over again and
always discover a new and stun-
ning trick of filmmaking.
In addition to “Carol” ’s sophis-
ticated style and award-worthy
performances, the subject mat-
ter is especially timely. On the
heels of the summer’s Supreme
Court marriage equality deci-
sion, great queer love stories
have a special exigency. If Carol
and Therese weren’t fictional and
if they were alive today, I’d hope
that the characters might meet a
different end than they do in this
movie. Maybe Therese wouldn’t
be dating a well-intentioned
but clueless man with whom
she has no passion, and maybe
Carol wouldn’t be haunted by
her boozy, vengeful ex-husband.
Maybe the world wouldn’t be so
hell-bent on keeping these two
women apart, and their romance
could unfold in places other than
hotel rooms and phone calls
where no one can hear. But the
secrecy and hushed nature of
their courtship depict a harsh
reality — people really did have
to live like this, and in certain
communities, they still do.
One of the film’s most poi-
gnant moments comes when
Therese broaches the subject
of homosexual desire with her
boyfriend Richard (Jake Lacy,
“Obvious Child”). She asks him
if he’s ever heard of people being
attracted to members of the same
sex. Of course he cites knowing
of “guys like that,” but it’s not
possible for two men to “fall in
love suddenly with each other,
out of the blue.” According to
Richard, you’re either like that
(different, taboo, deviant), or
you’re not. Simply bringing the
topic up is enough for Richard
to grill Therese on her sexuality
and berate her for not returning
his affections. From a 2016 per-
spective, Richard’s assumptions
seem especially coded with gross
heteronormativity and hateful-
ness. He’s just clueless.
When the two women behind
me giggled at a love scene
between Carol and Therese, I had
every reason to be irked. “Carol”
is a stunning romance film, ele-
gant and elegiac and undeserving
of schoolgirl whispers. It makes
your heart hurt, makes you think
and makes you understand. I can’t
know for sure, but I think the
women behind me were laughing
because they appreciated all of
this. They understood.
A
Carol
The Weinstein
Company
The Michigan
Theater
FILM REVIEW
FILM REVIEW
Overwhelming ‘Joy’
By LAUREN WOOD
Daily Arts Writer
On the way to see “Joy” with
my mom the day after Christmas,
we stopped and ran some errands.
At
CVS,
the
woman at the
counter
gave
me a quick les-
son in coupon-
ing and told me
how to use two
of the receipts
I had together
to buy a new
razor for only
a dollar. When we dropped off a
skirt to be taken in at the tailor,
the seamstress talked about her
holiday dinner while she penciled
in appointments for the upcoming
week. We ran through the thick-
falling snow to the dry cleaners to
pick up a couple of shirts for my
dad, and after we carefully hung
them in the back seat of the car,
we were back on our way to the
movies.
In “Joy,” a struggling single
mother (Jennifer Lawrence, “The
Hunger Games”) works to sup-
port her sprawling family while
continually slighted by her bed-
ridden mother (Virginia Madsen,
“Sideways”), aimless ex-husband
(Édgar Ramírez, “The Bourne
Ultimatum”) and flighty father
(Robert De Niro, “Goodfellas”)
who all depend on her. After being
dragged on a sailboat trip where
she is forced to clean up spilled
red wine and broken glass with
an old mop, cutting her hands
in the process, she borrows her
daughter’s crayons to draw up
the blueprints for a self-wringing
mop, finally fulfilling her dream
of being an inventor after years of
pushing her own life to the side.
Joy works tirelessly to sell her
mop on streets, in shops and later
on QVC, eventually becoming a
hugely powerful businesswoman
and multimillion dollar corpora-
tion owner.
Based on the real life of Joy
Mangano,
whose
inventions
include not only the self-wringing
mop but velvet hangers, travel-
ing cosmetic cases and portable
steamers, the film holds storytell-
ing itself up as a central theme,
speaking
almost
anecdotally
about the complications that come
with achieving the American
Dream. Joy’s grandmother Mimi
(Diane Ladd, “Chinatown”) nar-
rates the entire story from beyond
the grave and the film is peppered
with footage from the characters’
home movies, calling attention to
the construction of the story itself.
There is a strange mix of authentic
moments and constructed ones,
and Joy first comes to understand
ideas of betrayal and determina-
tion through watching elaborate
soap operas with her mother as
a child. Additionally, as she and
her husband fall in love, they
sing together on a stage with fake
snow falling and artificial light
encircling them. It’s not exactly
the picture-perfect moment of
seemingly realistic but less hon-
est films, but it also isn’t trying to
convince its audience that perfect
moments or successes just happen
on their own.
“Joy” tells its story with the
determination and quiet punch
of a mobster film, with Jennifer
Lawrence’s
unforgiving
stare
managing to speak to the dual-
ity of a character who has given
up everything and will fight tire-
lessly for success, all in the form
of selling a mop and acting pri-
marily as a mother. She scouts
out success in any niche that is
available to her, and feminizes the
mobster movie in a way that does
not punch out one character to be
replaced by a woman, or down-
play the power that comes with
the genre. The mop that brings
Joy success is designed by and for
women looking for better ways
to clean their homes and Joy’s
young daughter hovers in the
back of every scene, watching her
mother’s long and winding path
to reputability. “Joy” is a mob
movie about the cottage industry
in the midst of modernity, and
it tells a story about American
achievement from the ground up,
showing that there is no set path
toward success.
As I left the theater, over-
whelmed with the power that
could come from this story about
a mother inventing a mop with
crayons and an under-the-table
loan from a friend, I couldn’t help
but think back to the women I
had encountered earlier that day,
working in stores around my
hometown. “Joy”’s power doesn’t
come from its elaborate cinema-
tography, attractive lighting or
perfectly paced script. It comes
from the reality of the situation it
is reconstructing for us on screen.
Every day in innumerable ways,
we encounter mothers working to
construct some sort of success for
those who depend on them, in any
way they find possible. Whether
it’s inventing a new mop or hem-
ming skirts for a neighborhood of
girls, this pocket of American suc-
cess reflects from the screen into
our everyday lives. In the movie,
as Joy sold her first round of mops
on QVC, 50,000 units each priced
at the classic infomercial rate of
$19.95, my mom pulled out her
phone in the middle of the the-
ater to calculate how much money
was just made (around 1 million
dollars). In the credits, it shows
that Joy Mangano was one of
the producers of the film, just
another endeavor to add to her
already long and diverse list.
These crossovers between real-
ity and storytelling hit hard in
Joy, bringing the film from the
realm of a powerful, mobster-
esque movie to one about the
reality of success in America and
building a solid life any way you
find possible.
2015’s Top Games
By JACOB RICH
Senior Arts Editor
1. Undertale (Toby Fox, PC)
The greatest children’s fiction
is rooted in fear. Think about the
moment of death in your favorite
Disney movie, or the terrifying
zombies in “Zelda,” or the gore
and violence in Spielberg’s ubiq-
uitous blockbusters, or the Unfor-
givable Curses in “Harry Potter.”
The best kid literature emphasiz-
es the joy and wonder the world
has to offer while acknowledging
the aspects of life that are, ironi-
cally, often deemed too scary to
discuss with kids.
“Undertale” expertly employs
this synthesis of joyful and fright-
ening. It’s a role-playing game
that’s full to the brim with goofy,
wonderful characters, laugh-out-
loud clever dialogue and beauti-
ful, quaint environments. It’s also
a narrative about genocide. By
allowing the player the choice of
either fighting or talking to the
game’s randomly encountered
‘enemies,’ “Undertale” becomes
an inversion of the classic ‘chosen
hero’ mythology found frequently
in RPGs. Being a hero in “Under-
tale” isn’t about slaying evil mon-
sters. It’s about finding mutual
understanding; discovering the
reasons why people are different
and learning to accept them, even
though the process can some-
times be painful. It’s moral abso-
lutism, but it’s so well meaning
that it’s tough to criticize.
But you can also kill every-
thing. You can live out your video
game power fantasy, like you did
in “God of War” and “Shadow of
Mordor.” But once you do, there’s
no going back. Not even if you
delete your save file. The game
remembers. Decisions in “Under-
tale” have consequence unprec-
edented in the medium, because it
refuses to abide by rules that have
long been standard in its genre.
There’s too much great stuff
in “Undertale” to discuss in a lit-
tle blurb for a top ten list. I can’t
believe I haven’t even touched
on the soundtrack (the best of
the year by a mile), or the sav-
age but loving parodies of dating
Sims and “Final Fantasy VI,” or
the little character moments that
are completely unnecessary but
contribute so much to making the
game’s world worth caring about.
You’ll never forget the time you
spend with “Undertale.”
2. Bloodborne (From Soft-
ware, PS4)
It’s 2015. Video games are more
diverse and inclusive than they’ve
ever been. If your game is still
structured around blood and gore
and killing stuff, you’re going to
have to be the cream of the crop to
impress me. “Bloodborne,” 2015’s
goriest, bloodiest game about kill-
ing stuff, impressed me.
Since their 2009 breakthrough
game “Demon’s Souls,” developer
From Software (which I imagine
consists of dozens of depressed
Japanese salarymen who have
similar worldviews to me) has
been lauded as the last bastion
of old-school difficulty in action
games. They’re the heir appar-
ent to games like “Ghouls and
Ghosts” and NES-era “Castleva-
nia,” where killing gross mon-
sters was a simple pleasure and
even the shortest games were so
hard they took ages to beat. From
Software has been doing the best
work in the genre for years, but
now they have a budget.
“Bloodborne” blends top-of-
the-line monster-slaying combat
with a strange, environmental
otherworldliness influenced by
Lovecraftian
cosmic
horror.
Exploring the city of Yharnam
is like a fever dream of violence
and
surrealist
imagery,
but
“Bloodborne” ’s violence is less
Hot Topic pseudo-edginess and
more intimately crafted deprav-
ity. This might be meat-and-pota-
toes video game, but it’s the best
damn
meat-and-potatoes
I’ve
eaten all year.
3. The Witcher III: Wild
Hunt (CD PROJEKT RED,
Xbox One, PS4 and PC)
“The Witcher III” makes me
proud to be Polish. If you haven’t
heard of it, “The Witcher” is a
fantasy
mega-franchise
that’s
essentially
the
equivalent
of
“Game of Thrones” in the country
(there’s books, shows, movies, and
games). The games in particu-
lar have really hit in the United
States, with this entry in particu-
lar taking home numerous Ameri-
can game of the year awards. It’s
for good reason — this is a fantasy
universe that’s made the transi-
tion to open-world gameplay with
stride, providing a fantasy nar-
rative that’s actually mature and
interesting where many games
fail to be. Pogroms, abortion
and rural superstition are tough
themes to explore in this format,
but “Witcher” deftly handles
these weighty topics using inti-
mately crafted cutscenes and
complex characters that are given
lots of quiet moments to develop
in between epic monster-slaying
adventures.
Oh, and its combat system
emphasizes thoughtful prepara-
tion over in-the-moment RPG
reflexes, which is a nice change
of pace. It’s also incredibly meaty
with content, and pro-consumer
developer CD PROJEKT RED has
a nice habit of providing lots of
free DLC to reward its loyal fans.
“The Witcher III” is quite the
package: it’s games as art, enter-
tainment and service, all done
right.
4. Metal Gear Solid V: The
Phantom Pain (Kojima Produc-
tions, Xbox One, PS4 and PC)
How can a fifth entry in a
hugely
popular
blockbuster
series be the most daring game of
the year? This open-world mag-
num opus is the first big stride
the genre has made in many
years thanks to Kojima Produc-
tions’ complete 180-degree turn
in design philosophy. Where
the previous “Metal Gear Solid”
games wore their genre film
inspirations on their sleeve, this
one prioritizes emergent sand-
box gameplay. “MGSV” trans-
forms what could have easily
been another boring open-world
shooter into a gleeful, flamboy-
ant, ultraviolent romp through
base after base of enemy soldiers
— the clay for the player to sadis-
tically mold with an immense
arsenal of brutal weaponry and
stealth trickery. The scummy
microtransactions added since
the game’s launch diminished its
lasting appeal, but the base game
is so good that not even the ter-
rible business practices of pub-
lisher Konami can keep it from
its rightful place high on this list.
5. Sonic Dreams Collection
(Arcane Kids, PC)
At its core, “Sonic Dreams Col-
lection” is deep sexual fear. It’s a
twisted, nihilist parody that rel-
ishes in the weird stuff we do with
our doors closed and our Internet
browsers open.
Possibly the first instance of
the “found footage” genre in
video game history, this game
was announced as a discovered
set of “Sonic The Hedgehog” pro-
totypes SEGA made for their fail-
ing Dreamcast console in the late
90’s. But once the “Sonic Dreams
Collection” devolves into furry
prom night threesomes, feeding
fetish porn and nightmare gas-
trointestinal nativity scenes, it’s
pretty obvious that the family-
friendly Japanese developer had
nothing to do with this.
But that doesn’t change this
game’s raw power; the power to
discomfort and terrify and, best
of all, elicit laugh after laugh.
This game and developer Arcane
Kids’s 2013 masterpiece “Bubsy
3D: Bubsy Visits the James Tur-
rell Retrospective” are a one-two
punch of profoundly affecting
avant-garde challenges to form.
Do not write this game off
because it’s a free download. This
is one of the best video games of
the year.
6. Batman: Arkham Knight
(Rocksteady, Xbox One and
PS4)
I’ve felt that the transition to
open-world gameplay was the
wrong direction for the “Bat-
man:
Arkham”
games
since
“Arkham City.” While there are
definite improvements in player
movement and visual design in
“Arkham Knight”, debut game
“Arkham Asylum” still remains
the best interactive Batman
experience. Its contained envi-
ronment that had only been seen
in glimpses in the comics pro-
vided an incredible nightmare-
playground to get acclimated
to. By the end, it felt like home.
There’s no familiarity with big-
ass open-world cities like the one
in “Knight.”
That being said, “Knight” is the
Batman game that does the most
interesting stuff with the idea of
Batman, both as a mythologized
symbol and as a human character.
Throughout the game Batman is
wracked with fear, paranoia and
self-doubt, visualized in one of the
most ingenious uses of game form
I have ever experienced. You’ve
probably already had it spoiled
for you if you follow games, but if
you’ve somehow missed it, head
into this one blind and see where
it takes you. You won’t regret it.
Note that the PC version is not
included in this ranking. I hear
it’s a quite sub-par version of the
game.
7. Fallout 4 (Bethesda, Xbox
One, PS4 and PC)
Let’s just come out and say it:
“Fallout 4” isn’t the leap ahead for
Bethesda open-world games that
“Skyrim” was. “Skyrim” will live
on as perhaps the most important
blockbuster video game of the
2010s, while “Fallout 4” will be
remembered as a nice, but ulti-
mately too iterative follow-up.
Still, the wonderful specific-
ity of exploration at your own
pace (an experience so unique to
video games and so wonderfully
achieved in Bethesda’s RPGs)
has not been lost here. Fallout 4’s
immaculately detailed world was
a joy to turn over from beginning
to end, providing some wonder-
ful new characters and great little
story beats along the way. It’s the
most-good game you can get for
$60 this year, but it’s not the best.
8. The Beginner’s Guide
(Everything Unlimited Ltd.,
PC)
Davey Wreden’s personal opus
begins as a simple walk-and-talk
showcase of an indie developer’s
unreleased video games, a sort of
museum tour of a person’s inter-
nal creative energy. Things get
interesting when the game design
starts to talk back. “The Begin-
ner’s Guide” transforms into a
commentary on sadistic voyeur-
ism and personal privacy, cen-
tered around a moral quandary
— is it okay to assign meaning to
art that isn’t yours? Is that what
I’m doing with this entry in this
top ten list right now?
I’m not sure, but I think it’s safe
to say that you should buy and
play “The Beginner’s Guide.” It’s
cheap to say it’s unlike anything
you’ve played before, but believe
me on this one.
9. Until Dawn (Supermas-
sive, PS4)
“Until Dawn” is the greatest
realization of R.L. Stine’s “Give
Yourself Goosebumps” the world
has ever seen, and I mean that
in the best way possible. A teen
horror tribute with elements of
“Evil Dead,” “Scream,” “Saw,”
and “The Descent,” “Until Dawn”
is a choose-your-own adventure
novel presented with possibly the
best visual design, performance
capture (Hayden Panettiere and
a pre-“Mr. Robot” Rami Malek
light up the screen here) and
kinetic cinematography in video
game history.
It’s a bit disappointing that the
narrative structure changes little
from playthrough to playthrough
(especially since the game hints
at such a feature up front) but
what’s amazing about this game is
that the player’s actions really do
determine who lives and who dies.
Any combination of the game’s
eight cute teens can survive the
night, and the game really under-
stands the fun of gory horror film
death without feeling mean. What
a lovely piece of trash.
10. Rocket League (Psyonix,
PS4 and PC)
In a way, “Rocket League” is an
elaboration on “Pong”: head-to-
head multiplayer with two goals
and a ball. But “Rocket League”
has cars with rockets strapped
on them pushing around a giant
soccer ball. The beauty of it is that
it’s an idea we’ve all had – what if
real-life sports were crazy dysto-
pian messes of steel, engines and
explosions? “Rocket League” lets
us live out this essential human
fantasy.
This is a so-dumb-it’s-genius
idea married to great gameplay.
A revelation in physics-based
object manipulation, “Rocket
League” manages to capture
the competitive spirit of soccer
and simplify it to work perfect-
ly with a controller. This was
my go-to competitive game for
intoxicated hangouts this year,
and I don’t see that changing for
quite some time.
VIDEO GAME NOTEBOOK
A
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