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Loving Highsmith
A beautifully textured study revealing the rich and troubled private life of the writer behind Carol.
Director: Eva Vitija
Overview
Director Eva Vitija’s comment on trying to understand Patricia Highsmith’s darker side might summarise the dilemma of the writer herself: ‘when I tried to find people that could tell me more about it, nobody could’. Highsmith’s thrilling, often disturbing, novels were born of a difficult childhood – a remote mother, a racially prejudiced grandmother – but through diaries and interviews we glimpse a young woman grappling with the literary and political demons of her time, forging answers where none previously lay. This is no more apparent than in The Price of Salt (aka Carol), the first lesbian novel to suggest a happy ending for its protagonists, and whose lasting legacy is testament to one of the most complex and intriguing writers of the 20th century.
discrimination, moderate violence, nudity, language, sex references
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