Film REVIEW Carnage

Carnage is a hilarious black comedy, based on four characters and a simple plot that unfolds within three rooms of an apartment and a hallway. After a playground scuffle between their sons, the four meet to discuss the incident. Kate Winslet and Christopher Waltz play the “bully’s” parents – an investment banker, and a pharmaceutical attorney (who is staving off the onslaught of product liability litigation). Jodie Foster and Jon Reilly play the “victim’s” parents – a writer (specializing in ancient art and the conflict in Darfur) and a wholesale supplier of toilets. The ensuing conversations devolve into an absurd situation as different moral universes collide.

Without delving deep or navigating anyone’s moral landscape, the film’s characters address a mosaic of moral issues (acknowledgement, accountability and responsibility, pretense and politics) within a multitude of everyday contexts (art, child rearing, marital relations, pharmaceutical product liability, and eight-year-olds playing with Kalashnikovs in Darfur). Although the characters do not ‘evolve’ (how many of us could in 79 minutes?), they progressively reveal more of their true personalities and that’s why things get out of hand.

The way this film was scripted, staged and filmed ultimately makes for a delicious NY deli sandwich – with two thin slices of bread supporting a thick meaty middle, and without any “smear” of pretentious dressings. A simple plot, four actors and three rooms provide one of the slices. The other is added through fast-paced action, magically pivoted through the use of six props (an art book, a bucket, a hairdryer, a mobile phone, a vase of tulips, and a purse). As for the meaty middle, that’s provided by the witty dialogue and well-orchestrated silences, which the actors perform like a finely tuned string quartet.

Carnage was adapted from a modern morality play from the theater of the absurd. The God of Carnage, written by Yasmina Reza, has garnered prestigious dramatic awards since opening in 2006. The play was also staged in Romania at Teatrul de Comedie Bucuresti (2010) and Teatrul National de Iasi (2011), to mixed reviews.

Among the motivations for adapting a play to the big screen is the opportunity to present a great story to a wider audience. It’s also a daunting challenge, given audience attention spans and their different focal points for films (action) and plays (dialogue). Merging two different genres is tricky.

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Both Polanski and Reza succeed in creating an engaging and compelling film, by striking the right balance among dialogue and action for this story and its characters.

Achieving balance is especially difficult when a film is based on a morality play. Perhaps that’s why I recalled another film adapted from a play – Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, written by Edward Albee. While the precarious balance in this older film (1966) endures for 131 minutes (four characters, set in one house), Carnage achieves its balance in just 79 minutes (four characters, set in one apartment). But that’s where the creative similarities end. Whereas Albee insisted that the underlying theme of his play was “man’s real need to live with the truth”, Reza’s play seems to underscores man’s incompatibility for “living in truth”, especially when our moral compass is not absolute, but relative and ever changing.

Carnage both shows and tells us how we choose our morals (Mrs. Cowan applies lipstick without using a mirror); ignore morals (Mr. Cowan is always connected to his cell phone but hardly present for his wife and son); confuse morals (Mr. Longstreet, a cigar smoker, abandons the family hamster for the alleged benefit of his asthmatic son); and debase morals (Mrs. Longstreet disregards a sick guest, while using cheap cologne and a hairdryer to refresh her precious art book).

Andrea Ovanezian

Director: Roman Polanski
Starring: Jodie Foster, Kate Winslet
Budget: USD 25 million, Box Office Mojo: USD 19 million (93 percent foreign/ 7 percent domestic for 16 Dec-15 Jan)
On at: Cinema City Cotroceni, Cinema City Sun Plaza, Grand Cinema Digiplex Baneasa, Hollywood Multiplex, Studio, The Light Cinema