Sunday Movie Review: "Carnage"

Hi everyone!

"Carnage" is Roman Polanski's film version of Yasmina Reza's popular play "The Gods of Carnage," which ran on Broadway a couple years' back and picked up numerous awards. As I haven't seen the original play, I can only base my opinion on the film, though I have a feeling that the film is a pretty faithful adaptation, which isn't necessarily a good thing.

In case you're not familiar, let me give a brief overview of the story. "Carnage" is set over the course of a single afternoon in a fairly upscale apartment somewhere in New York, assumably near the Brooklyn Bridge Park. As the opening credits roll, we see from a distance a group of young-ish boys playing in a park. There appears to be a verbal altercation between two of the boys, and then one boy picks up a stick and thwacks it across the other boy's face.

Cut to the apartment. Nancy and Alan Cowan, played by Kate Winslet and Christoph Waltz, are the parents of Zachary, the aggressor in the 'attack.' They have come to meet with Penelope and Michael Longstreet, played by Jodie Foster and John C. Reilly, the parents of Ethan, the 'victim' of the aforementioned attack. It turns out that Ethan lost two teeth and suffered from some nerve damage as a result of being hit across the face with a branch. Penelope is particularly set on exacting some sort of apology from Nancy and Alan for the behavior of their son. Things start off awkwardly and then just go downhill from there.

Let me start by saying that for the first 45 minutes or so, I was absolutely drawn into the characters, the dialogue, and the situation. On the first glance, it seems that these are basically good people who are trying to be good parents while looking out for the best interests of their children. But as the film progresses, the cracks in their relationships start to come through as do the cracks in their own individual psyches. Alan (Christoph Waltz) is an arrogant lawyer working for the pharmaceutical industry who would rather mediate the recall of a particular drug on his cell phone than have any involvement in the discipline of his son. His wife, Nancy (Kate Winslet), is an investment broker and somewhat of an ice goddess, though her brittle exterior only masks an extremely unhappy and lonely woman. On the other side of the equation, Penelope (Jodie Foster) is a basket-case of nerves and liberal do-goodism whose academic and philanthropic aspirations--she's writing a book about Darfur--are delivered with a rigid and rather uncompromising sense of moral superiority and stifling political correctness. Her husband Michael (John C. Reilly) initially comes across as a straightforward, rather happy-go-lucky blue collar guy--he buys and sells parts: door handles, flush mechanisms on toilets, etc--who, as it turns out, bitterly resents his wife's pseudo-intellectualism.

Things start off on a rather tense note. These are clearly not the type of people who would normally interact or socialize with each other. They each come into the situation with some fairly well-defined preconceived notions about the other couple. But then coffee and cobbler is served, one character has a horrendous bout of projectile vomiting--which I have to say came as a surprise and I would say is the highlight of the whole film and probably one of the most truly memorable scenes of the year. I was literally gagging and laughing hysterically at the same time. What some people won't do to preserve their collection of rare art catalogues!

The dialogue comes fast and furious and is witty enough to keep you listening. But...after around the halfway point, it all gets a little tedious. I think what it boils down to is a case of what works on stage doesn't necessarily translate as well on film. Eventually, I found myself wondering, why the hell do Alan and Nancy hang around, especially after all the copious vomiting...which, again, I thought was staged brilliantly. It turns out that all four of these characters are miserable, that their marriages are a sham, and the antisocial behavior exhibited by Zach and Ethan is really just a physical manifestation of the emotional and verbal violence the parents hurl at each other but manage to keep under wraps in public. It's a rather thin premise than becomes rather threadbare by the end, especially when the Scotch is poured and tongues are loosened by the alcohol.

However, as an ensemble piece with some pretty terrific moments, "Carnage" worked for me. I thoroughly enjoyed it even as I didn't particularly buy into it. Christoph Waltz gives a standout performance that is nicely matched by his male counterpart in John C. Reilly. The women fair less well. Kate Winslet is good, especially early on when she's trying to maintain an outward level of calm and decency despite a violent case of nausea, but I found her less interesting as the film went on. I appreciated what Jodie Foster was trying to achieve with her character but she was just too shrill and hysterical from the onset for me to really find her all that compelling.

In the end, what's obvious is bullies are bullies no matter their age and we don't really change or mature all that much as we grow older. We just become more pathetic.

Ciao.