Acute synchronicity shapes Julianne Moore’s “hypersensitive” Beverly Hills homemaker in Todd Haynes’ intellectual disease movie.

While we saw rather more of Moore in Short Cuts, here we eyeball ever-decreasing degrees of a woman whose allergies to her environment seem to shrink her.

Moore even lost weight for Haynes, not so much embodying Carol as disembodying her. “I wanted her to be, like, invisible,” she said. This is performance as high-risk anti-performance, selflessly surrendering to the role’s demands.

Greatest Moment: Carol faces what little is left of herself in the mirror.

Also See: Marian Wyman (Short Cuts), Amber Waves (Boogie Nights), Cathy Whitaker (Far From Heaven).