Review of Carnage (2011) by Stephen B — 13 Jul 2015

What a gorgeous casting! Kate Winslet, Jodie Foster and Christoph Waltz are Oscar winners and John C. Reilly is an Oscar nominee.

I'm intimated if the strongest actresses Kate and Jodi crush head-on in the bloodiest fight but the movie is well-balance by Jodie and Christoph taking aggressive roles while Kate and John taking softer roles so that the movie would not fail due to series of dreadful fights.

All scenes except park scenes are shot in a house and actors were requested to learn the script from cover to cover by heart. They repeated rehearsals to reflect direction in the performance and real performance was shot in real time without rests. Thus indoor performance in the house became thrilling with dynamism of lines and tension of real time take.

It is funny that, at first, they have assailant and victim structure in a fight of their kids but the structure changes as the husbands sympathize each other and wives collude each other depending on dialogues they have.

Carnage in the title means genocide but I believe the title implies:

-Human beings have a nature of carnage.

-Irony to exaggerated reactions to their kids' fight.

-metaphor of dreadful scenes.

In the ending credit, a puppy urinate in the park. It is difficult to control its behavior completely by a leash but I don't think it's smart to start a war because its urination may destroy environment.