A pair of gray suede
gloves abandoned on a department store counter; a small 35 mm still camera obscuring a woman's face except for her eyes; an electric train set; a finger on the disconnect button of a telephone; an ungloved, well - manicured
hand resting briefly on another woman's shoulder: Todd Haynes's Carol is not a Hitchcockian thriller, although it is adapted from the second novel by Patricia Highsmith, whose first, Strangers on a Train, was the basis for one of the master of suspense's great movies.