CARNAGE
Directed by: Roman Polanski
Written by: Yasmina Reza and Roman Polanski
Starring: Kate Winslet, Jodie Foster, John C. Reilly, and Christoph Waltz
Ask anyone and they will tell you parenting is hard work. Not only do you face the challenges of raising a child to be an upstanding citizen, but you also have to deal with fellow parents and their opinions on how to properly raise children. It’s out of that parental strife that CARNAGE was born. Based on Yasmina Reza’s play “God of Carnage,” director Roman Polanski (ROSEMARY’S BABY) adds a new layer of genteel wickedness to his version.
CARNAGE tells the story of two couples – the Longstreets (Jodie Foster and John C. Reilly) and the Cowans (Kate Winslet and Christoph Waltz) – who are brought together after a brawl between their sons Zachary and Ethan at a local park turned violent. The semantics about the incident throws the couples into some intense arguments about who’s to blame, why the kids did it, and how exactly things should be rectified. However, reason and rationality are tossed aside, quicker than Nancy (Winslet) tosses her cookies.
Unlike the play, Roman Polanski’s version is nicely bookended in the park giving the film more of resolution – ending on a more hopeful note. Reeza’s dialogue turns from cordial and complimentary to nasty and aggressive at the drop of a hat, and then switches back again effortlessly. Alliances are quickly formed and broken between the couples and the sexes. Personal boundaries are pushed and decimated. Delicious barbs are slingshot back and forth. It’s like a hilariously lighter version of WHO’S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF? In one scene, Penelope and Nancy are looking at one of Penny’s treasured art books from Bacon, commenting on the artwork inside: “Cruelty and splendor. Chaos and balance.” This can also be said of what’s inside each of these characters.
Each of these four actors are in top form. Foster’s Penelope is a woman so ravaged by white people guilt, she feels the need to micro-manage everything in her life. She’s the perfect WASP-y “Mama Bear,” who mistakes honesty for aggressiveness. Winslet’s Nancy is an uptight woman so stressed by the turmoil in her marriage (instigated by her husband’s always ringing Blackberry) that she never properly addresses problems until it’s too late. The notion being that when Nancy projectile vomits, it serves as her “freeing” moment. When she lets loose after the Scotch starts flowing, audiences are in for a treat. Reilly is perfectly cast as Michael who is putting on a show, kowtowing to his wife’s demands, only to later let the tiger out of the cage as an assertive manly leader drinking Scotch and smoking cigars. And, as always, Waltz holds his own as the button pushing, hot tempered Alan.
Unlike the Cowans, CARNAGE never outstays its welcome. It’s briskly paced at only 80 minutes. There’s precious little to complain about here. You don’t know exactly who to root for, but it doesn’t really matter as they are all correct in their (albeit hysterical) way of thinking. A few on-the-nose lines of dialogue meant to catch the audience up to speed are forgiven for the way they play into the larger picture. The film’s crowning achievement is quite possibly that as soon as you start to wonder why the Cowans are still in the Longstreets’ apartment, it finds clever ways to get them to leave and then immediately pull them back into the fray again.
Who really wins in these types of situations? Are the kids better than the parents because their squabble was essentially over in a few seconds? Or are reasoning and sussing things out in a rational manner better ways to solve the problem? The film lets the viewer decide, however, it would seem it favors the children’s way of problem solving.
CARNAGE played AFIFest on November 5. The film opens on December 16.
