“What a strange girl you are. Flung out of space!”. It’s their first lunch date, when Carol, a well-heeled socialite and mother on the verge of divorce, says this to Therese, who smiles and looks down, coyly taking the rather bold remark as a compliment.

They’ve met close to Christmas time of 1952, in the toy section of the department store where Therese works, and maintained contact because of the pair of gloves that Carol has (very possibly on purpose) left behind. Haynes doesn’t press that point-- he wants us to tease out these characters for ourselves, and has an unimprovable grasp of what clues we do and don’t need.

Before too long, Carol has invited Therese to stay at her lavish home upstate, but her desperate husband (Kyle Chandler) turns up uninvited. As the Airds argue bitterly on the driveway, Therese reaches for the volume on a phonograph inside. The fact that she turns it up, not down, is one of those clues.

Many of the most stunning sequences here are inside cars - it’s halfway to a road movie, as Carol and Therese escape on a trip West to consummate their affair away from prying, disapproving eyes. Lachman works utter magic when they drive through a tunnel to get off Manhattan, getting in up close as they flirt, finding a symphony of reflections and hues bouncing off the windscreen, thrilling to their potential together.