Review: Carnage

I never thought I would laugh intentionally at a Roman Polanski film, but Carnage is the film that has made the improbable real. Laceratingly funny, Carnage’s raison d’etre is the outstanding performances from three-quarters of its four-strong cast that positively demand awards recognition.

John C Reilly and Jodie Foster invite Christoph Waltz and Kate Winslet round to discuss a playground altercation between the two couples’ boys. The tension between the two couples is obvious from the start, but swiftly the film lays bear the internal rivalries within each marriage and highlights the eternal battle of the sexes.

While the four characters have been created to generate maximum friction, they are fully developed across the film’s short running time (just 80 minutes), ensuring their behaviour (for the most part) is utterly believable.

Jodie Foster rants and raves with aplomb, Reilly deftly plays out his passive/aggressive role, while Waltz imbues his lawyer with an intelligent yet childish streak of evil. The only false note is la Winslet: she’s one of my favourite actresses, but I’m never convinced by her American accent, plus seeing her, always a strong female lead, as the unequal half in her marriage is jarring. Having said that, Winslet generates probably the film’s biggest gut-wrenching laugh…

As the four squabble and fight, the insults and insights become sharper, funnier and more painful, the hypocrisies of the bourgeois and petit-bourgeois well and truly skewered. As the verbal punches fly faster and with increasing intensity, it becomes like a tagteam boxing match.

However, the script, adapted from a play, never truly escapes its origins and nor does it rise to Mamet-esque or LaBute-esque levels of black comedy – but then again not much does!
Score: 7.5/10