Adapted from the play "God of Carnage" by Yasmina Reza, "Carnage" (2011) serves as a hilariously bleak display of what happens when two sets of parents unleash their intense personalities in a Brooklyn apartment. While differing in some obvious ways from the similarly themed novel "Lord of the Flies" by William Golding, which is set on a deserted island and features a group of young boys, "Carnage" also exemplifies the primordial instincts of humans when they are deprived of societal constructs.
Uniquely filmed in sequence, Roman Polanski's film begins after the catalytic event has already occurred two New York City schoolchildren getting into a fight. The aggressor's parents, Alan and Nancy (Christoph Waltz and Kate Winslet), are called over to the home of the other boy's parents, Penelope and Michael (Jodie Foster and John C. Reilly), to smooth things over in a calm and rational way. What occurs instead is a slow devolution of each person's manners, as small slights and insults erupt into full-blown anarchy, proving the smoke-and-mirror effect of societal norms, as shown in Golding's novel as well.
At a brisk 80 minutes, however, the film feels as if it develops its arc too fast, even for a movie in which not much seems to happen. The film's failure at times to maintain a sequential and gradual plot is a minor complaint, however, as "Carnage" was an otherwise impressive film.
Apart from the first and last shot, "Carnage" takes place in one location and features only the four main cast members, though a few other characters enter in conversation or over the phone. Polanski employs a format often used in television shows or plays in which main characters are stuck in one location to allow for introspection and further development of their relationships. On television, the effect is known as "bottle episodes," but it is also found in plays such as "No Exit" by Jean-Paul Sartre, "The Dumbwaiter" by Harold Pinter and, of course, "God of Carnage." Rarely, however, is it used in full-length movies. It is perhaps a testament to the play's success that "Carnage" accomplishes what it sets out to do so well. At the beginning, the characters are a mystery to us, but by the end, we know much more than we care to.
For a man who hasn't set foot in the United States for over 30 years, Polanski is remarkably adept at capturing the feel of an upscale Brooklyn apartment, complete with traffic noises and the unnecessary luxury items of the bourgeois. Furthermore, he seems to understand the development and mentality of the modern American parent and, by extension, American society. Alan and Nancy represent the 1 percent utterly maligned by the modern masses, and it would be natural that their son acts as the aggressor. Penelope and Michael are the more passive couple, and with Penelope's bleeding-heart liberalism, it makes sense that their son is the victim.
Winslet and Foster are outstanding character studies in passive-aggresiveness, with the inevitable bitch-off between the two being one of the highlights of the film. Waltz's cool demeanor suits him as a corporate lawyer who spars with Reilly's character, a simple door-to-door salesman. Yet, it is Reilly who is the most impressive of the cast. Known to my generation as Dale from "Stepbrothers" (2008), most people aren't aware that Reilly started off as a dramatic actor. Here, he turns in perhaps the best performance in the film as a laidback man, a rung above a Neanderthal in the evolutionary chain. His transformation is stellar, and it shows that his forays into comedy have not diluted his talents.
"Carnage" plays tonight at 7 p.m. in Spaulding Auditorium.
