Carol Picks Up Queer Palm At Cannes, With Rooney Mara Sharing Best Actress For The Lesbian Drama

In what isn’t particularly surprising news, Todd Hayne’s Carol, starring Cate Blanchett and Rooney Mara, has picked up the Queer Palm at Cannes, given out anually to the best LGBT-themed movie screening at the fest.

As the lesbian-themed drama was one of the frontrunners for the festival’s biggest prize, the Palm d’Or, it would have been more of a surprise if it hadn’t won the Queer Palm.

The Queer Palm’s jury noted though that while Carol made a very strong showing at Cannes, it was one of the few films at this year’s festival to include overtly gay representation. As a result they gave a special mention to The Lobster – starring Colin Farrell and Rachel Weisz in a fable about people who risk getting turned into animals if they fail to find the perfect mate in 45 days – even though it doesn’t contain anything explicitly gay at all. However as it ”ridiculed absurd social norms and conventions related to sexual relations,’ the jury decided to give it a nod anyway.

Carol lost out on the Palm d’Or itself, which went to Jacques Audiard’s Dheepan,  movie about three people who pose as a family in order to escape the Civil War in Sri Lanka. However Todd Hayne’s did have something else to cheer, as Rooney Mara shared the Best Actress prize for Carol with Emmanuelle Bercot, who was honoured for Mon Roi.

Carol is about the relationship between two women in 1950s New York. One is a young department store clerk, Therese (Rooney Mara), who dreams of a better life, and the other is the older Carol (Cate Blanchett), who is trapped in a loveless marriage. However Carol’s husband (Kyle Chandler) begins to suspect what is happening. Playwright Phyllis Nagy wrote the screenplay adaptation.