YMMV / Carol

• Actor Shipping: There's been a lot of Cate Blanchett/Rooney Mara shipping (including RPS) thanks to the chemistry they display in the movie.
• Adaptation Displacement: The author of the original novel is also famous for The Talented Mr. Ripley, itself made into a movie in 1999. Due to Carol being something of a Creator's Oddball for Highsmith as well as Highsmith needing to use a pseudonym for a controversial subject in the 1950s, the movie is probably more well-known than the book.
• Award Snub: Neither Blanchett nor Mara won their categories at the Oscars. The film also failed to win in anything else it was nominated for and was shockingly not even nominated for an Oscar for Best Picture or Best Director after seeming like a shoo-in for both. Especially bad is Mara's loss, as winner Alicia Vikander's less performance and film is mostly forgotten now. Granted, most agree that Mara should've been nominated as a lead actress, but the same is also said for Vikander.
• Awesome Music: Carter Burtwell's score, which plays out like a more sentimental, but never the less effective version of the kind of music that Philip Glass would make.
• Fanfic Fuel: The ending of the film led to quite a few fics of people making fan works of what happens afterwards.
• Jerkass Woobie: Richard, Therese's boyfriend. Given the standards of the time, his reaction is remarkably understated and quite understandable—his girlfriend, the woman he loves and wants to marry, is ditching him to run around the country with a woman she just met. Who wouldn't flip out at that?
• Memetic Mutation: "Harold, they're lesbians".^Explanation A Tumblr meme that originated from a story about how someone attended a screening of the movie where the audience was largely elderly couples. A woman allegedly whispered to her husband "Harold, they're lesbians". With a bit of Fridge Brilliance, the word "lesbian", "homosexual", or any other term with a similar meaning is never mentioned even once in the movie itself. So, that woman may feel the need to say it. This has gotten SO pervasive, it can be conveyed with just "Harold".
• Older Than They Think: The film is frequently thought of as a modern Period Piece. The original novel is genuinely from the 1950s. More specifically, it's a pulp romance novel from 1952.
• One True Pairing: Virtually all fanfiction of the movie/book involves Carol/Therese to some degree or another. The fandom isn't crazy about the plausible alternatives of Carol/Abby or Therese/Genevieve; if they do happen, Carol/Therese will still be the endgame.
• Portmanteau Couple Name: Carol/Therese — Carese or, more commonly, Belivaird.
• Spiritual Successor: To Far from Heaven, another 1950s-set romantic drama dealing with homosexual characters directed by Todd Haynes, but placing the gay romance front and center instead of in the B-plot.

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