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Carrie
1952 118 min United States of America 16+
★7.5
Drama, Romance
Director: William Wyler
Trailers
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Description
In the late 1890s, the ambitious, innocent Carrie arrives in Chicago’s South Side and stays with her nagging, dullish married sister. She then runs for help to traveling salesman Charles Drouet. She soon becomes his mistress, but falls in love with married restaurant manager George Hurstwood.
Starring
Laurence Olivier
Actor
Jennifer Jones
Actor
Miriam Hopkins
Actor
Awards
Venice Film Festival 1952
— Golden Lion
Academy Awards 1953
— Best Production Design (Black and White)
BAFTA 1953
— Best Picture
BAFTA 1953
— Best British Actor
Academy Awards 1953
— Best Costume Design (Black and White)
Key opinion
Carrie (1952) is a polarizing adaptation that succeeds as a standalone romantic drama for some, while failing others as a faithful representation of Theodore Dreiser’s gritty realism. While Laurence Olivier receives near-universal acclaim for his portrayal of George Hurstwood, the film’s significant deviations from the source material and the casting of Jennifer Jones remain major points of contention.
| Acting | Laurence Olivier delivers a brilliant and masterfully nuanced performance that anchors the film’s emotional weight. | |
| Adaptation | The film significantly alters the source material by stripping away Dreiser's critique of greed and grafting traits from a different novel, leaving literary purists unsatisfied. | |
| Acting | Opinions on Jennifer Jones are divided, with some praising her ideal performance as Carrie while others argue she was miscast due to her age and lack of character depth compared to the book. | |
| Screenplay | The narrative tone is a subject of disagreement, viewed by some as a sincere and moving romantic masterpiece, while others find it a simplistic and incoherent distortion of the original realistic work. |