New movie reviews in brief: Carol, The Danish Girl, In the Heart of the Sea

Carol

Both sensual and claustrophobic,Carolexploresthe love between two women at a time before the world was ready for it. It's a movie with an exquisite sense of place and mood: director ToddHaynesshot Carol,set in the1950s,on 16mm filmand filled it with the colours of afaded Polaroid. With thevisible film grain suggestinghome movies and a story that unfoldsthroughmeaningful looks, pointed glances and fingers restingon shoulders, Carolturnsthe audience into voyeurs and like any good seduction, it takes its time.

CateBlanchettis haughty and alluring as the title character, an unhappily married woman with a voice that wraps around you like afog. Then there'sRooneyMaraasTherese, the timid department store clerk who meets her eye. Shy, almost coquettish at times, Mara looks like a young AudreyHepburnand projects a sense of her inner struggle as she's forced to keep her desires to herself. More than a love story, Carol is about two women faced with impossible choices and a taletold with surprising sensitivity.

4.5 out of 5 stars

The Danish Girl

A sensual film artfully made, The Danish Girl gives Eddie Redmayne another opportunity to transform. This time, it's the tale of Lili Elbe, a Danish painter born male who ached to become a woman. Redmayne's portrayal is a delicate, sensitive thing a hand lingering over a woman's stocking,the desire written in Elbe's eyes and quivering lips.

With the painterly composition of director Tom Hooper, the taleof Elbe's transition comesalmost too easily. Perhaps that's why Alicia Vikander's performance as the artist's wife is so captivating, torn between losing the person she married and respecting Elbe's wishes. It's a portrait of a devastating kind of love.

3out of 5 stars

In the Heart of the Sea

Based on the shipwreck that inspired Moby-Dick (and a non-fiction bookby Nathaniel Philbrick), In the Heart of the Seacentres ona greenhorn ship captain (Benjamin Walker) and his seaworthy first mate (Chris Hemsworth). The setting is Nantucket in the1850s, when whale oilwas a majorAmerican industry.

For George Pollard (Walker),son of a long line of whalers, themission is clear:bring back aminimum of2,000 barrels of the viscous liquid. Whileold sea handOwen Chase (Hemsworth) doesn'thave the fortune of being born into a whaling dynasty, he has a pregnant wife at home and a promise to uphold.

The weakest element and a familiar blind spot for director Ron Howard is the film'spredictable characters, who slip far too easily into archetypes. With his long locks and leather vest straining to contain his bulk, Hemsworthlooks like anairbrushed Harlequin Romance cover model, and tosay Walker comes off as arrogantis to say the ocean is wet.

In the face of such predictability, however, the script entertains with florid eloquence: here, men don't lie but "embroider the truth." And Howard does shine in depicting thephysical element of this seafaring saga: his camera goes everywhere, from the muckof the harbour to therigging of the mainsail to the teetering height of thecrow's nest. Overall,In the Heart of the Sea is anepic that harks backto Hollywood films of yore.

3.5 out of 5 stars