Carnage - Film Review

Carnage, a film by Roman Polanski, is an adaptation of Yasmina Reza’s award-winning play God of Carnage. Funny and at times uncomfortably funny, at 79 minutes the film moves along quickly. The not quite real-time film shows the interaction between two couples whose sons were involved in a fight.

The movie is set entirely in the apartment of one couple, played by Jodie Foster and John C Reilly, as they host the aggressor's parents (Kate Winslet, Christoph Waltz). The wonderful cast captures the initial awkward forced politeness and later the conversation's escalation to verbal sparring.
Coffee, crumble and alcohol is used to smooth over the cracked relationship, but backfires as inhibitions drop, and builds some unexpected connections as the couples' sparring turns to politics, gender, middle class ethics and parental responsibility.

Sometimes claustrophobic, Carnage exposes the flaws of our communication first contemporary society where our message is often mislaid in an attempt to deliver the way we expect the receiver wishes to receive it. The film is well acted, if not a little over the top on Foster's part. The conflicts are ferocious as they expose the unpleasant truths buried not so far below the surface. Carnage is a dramatic film that is laugh out loud funny.

Carnage, stars Jodie Foster, John C. Reilly, Kate Winslet, Christoph Waltz