Review of Carnage (2014) by Joyde G — 24 Apr 2013

This small yet verbose film from director Roman Polanski has been adapted from Yasmina Reza's Tony Award-winning play God of Carange. We begin in New York park, where two 11-year-old boys get into a scuffle. Effectively accented by Alexandre Desplat's score, the fight culminates with Zachary striking his classmate Ethan with a stick, knocking out two of his teeth.

True to Polanski's penchant for claustrophobic confrontations, the rest of the film is set in the Brooklyn apartment of Ethan's parents (Jodie Foster and John C. Reilly), where they have invited Zachary's parents (Kate Winslet and Christoph Waltz) to discuss the incident in a "civilised" manner.

But civilities are soon forgotten as the meeting descends into an anarchic confrontation that is both deliciously dramatic and ferociously funny, with the couples turning on each other and eventually themselves. Things are thrown, but it is words that are the real weapons here; and while its roots on the stage are evident, it translates well enough to the screen.

Waltz shines as the work-obsessed husband who is more interested in his Blackberry than either his wife or the misconduct of his son. Foster, too, is brilliant as the left-wing, art-loving, over-sensitive mother; but all four provide fine performances.

The events of the film are somewhat contrived, but if you can suspend your disbelief that people in this situation would not simply leave ("Why are we still in this house?" exclaims Winslet's character towards the end of the film), then there is much to be enjoyed in this astute social commentary of the upper-middle class.