Ah! What a treat this was. It was everything I was expecting yet, strangely, it didn't quite knock it out of the park. It was a beautiful experience going into Carol's world - the outfits, the score, the performances, the lensing, the hairstyles, the set design, the toy trains and Blanchett's husky tones. The script never goes far enough into the darkness (a brief episode involving a revolver is clumsy) to pull us back from the brink to gasp for air, it probably didn't need to, and that's what marks it out as something special. It is quite happy to be just lovely. It's a vehicle for Oscar statuettes and will probably accrue a fair bunch (if best costume design isn't in the bag I'll be damned), but Best Picture it ain't.