Carnage (15)
- Starring: Kate Winslet, Jodie Foster, Christoph Waltz, John C. Reilly
- Director: Roman Polanski
- Duration: 79 mins
- Year: 2011
After two boys duke it out on a playground, the parents of the "victim" invite the parents of the "bully" over to work out their issues. A polite discussion of childrearing soon escalates into verbal warfare, with all four parents revealing their true colours. None of them will escape the carnage.
Reviews
Alison Rowat's Review
Like some latter-day Abigail’s Party transferred to Brooklyn, Roman Polanski’s comedy drama is a watch-through-your-fingers, snigger-behind-your-hand affair. Whatever nightmare dinner party, parents’ evening or coffee morning you’ve been to, Kate Winslet, Jodie Foster, Christophe Waltz and John C Reilly are out to beat it.
Adapted for the screen by Yasmina Reza from her play, Le Dieu du Carnage, almost all the action here takes place in one flat and a hallway. Instead of making the piece seem stagey, the setting adds to the tension. Polanski and his cast do the rest, so that by the end what starts off as just another tastefully furnished New York apartment might as well be a prison cell.
The plot is simplicity itself. Jodie Foster and John C Reilly are Penelope and Michael Longstreet. Kate Winslet and Christophe Waltz (Inglourious Basterds) are Nancy and Alan Cowan. Each couple has a son, and one of the boys has allegedly struck the other in a playground spat. Damage has been caused to teeth. Like nice, civilised, middle-class people, the four get together to discuss how the problem should be resolved.
Enter coffee, cobbler and simmering tension as the ultra-competitive mums and dads do battle. Polanski keeps the drama ticking along like a metronome, gradually increasing the pace. Whatever annoying traits each character has to start with are amplified. In the case of Waltz’s character, it’s his near constant talking into a mobile phone.
And just like that it’s over, after a mere 79 minutes. You wouldn’t want to come within a mile of any of these people but, boy, are they fun to watch for a while. And there’s no Demis Roussos either.