Australian-born actresses Cate Blanchett (pictured above) and Mia Wasikowska (below) are to play the leads in a film version of Patricia Highsmith’s lesbian-themed novella, The Price of Salt.

Confirmed at Cannes this week, the film will be called Carol and will take Highsmith’s 1952 lady-loving romance novel as inspiration. At a time when most fiction about lesbians involved unhappy endings, the novel was a respectful breath of fresh air as its characters didn’t suffer a grisly fate.

The film’s producer Elizabeth Karlsen knows the world is ready for another god Sapphic drama. “We’ve come a long way since Dirk Bogarde starred in Victim, she says.”We’ve had Brokeback Mountain, A Single Man, Far From Heaven – and President Obama came out in support of gay marriage.

And the tale itself is “a heartbreaking, wonderful story that has you on the edge of your seat,” enthuses Karlsen. It involves a female couple in 1950s New York being pursued by a private investigator looking for evidence on the older woman who then has to face a courtroom battle for custody of her daughter.

Highsmith also wrote two other stories which ended up as great films – The Talented Mr. Ripley and Strangers on a Train.

Blanchett is best known for her film roles in Notes on a Scandal, Babel and Lord of the Rings, plus she’s the co-director of the Sydney Theatre Company with her husband Andrew Upton.

Stunning 22-year-old Wasikowska has pleased the critics in Jane Eyre, The Kids Are All Right, Albert Knobbs and alongside Johnny Depp in Alice in Wonderland.