Polanski's 'Carnage' Pairs Clever Quips with Acting Talent

With an all-star and award-winning cast and director, Carnage has all the ingredients of a smash hit. Unfortunately, while the direction is indeed intriguing, shooting the entire film within a single apartment, the film fails to entertain as much as it displays the director's ability. The black comedy, directed by Roman Polanski, stars Jodie Foster, John C. Reilly, Kate Winslet, and Christoph Waltz as couples who meet in the wake of an argument between their two sons that resulted in one boy losing his front teeth. Penelope and Michael Longstreet (Foster and Reilly) are the parents of the victim and have invited Alan and Nancy Cowan (Waltz and Winslet) over to discuss the repercussions of their sons' actions. After exchanging initial impressions of the event, however, the Cowans find themselves unable to leave the apartment, and are repeatedly forced into uncomfortable situations with the Longstreets. Despite the appearance of a vomit-inducing cobbler and other frequent interruptions, the couples' interactions are enjoyable for the most part, as neither pair seems able to make conversation without hurling insults or jabs at the other. But while the tension between and within the couples make for more than a few laughs, the film ultimately relies too heavily on its own presumption that it is funny. Much of the script's purported humor is lost in the overly uptight Foster, who struggles to find the chemistry with Reilly that Winslet and Waltz sustain through the film. Reilly, an actor known for his ability to oscillate between comedic and dramatic roles, struggles with this role that allows him only a few punch  lines and suffers from the absence of a partner he can really work off of. Waltz, on the other hand, deftly portrays a lawyer with nonstop phone calls and monotonous humor and works well with Winslet; together, their back-and-forth provides much of the film's humor.

The film is based on the successful play, God of Carnage. Unlike the play, the film falls victim to the confinement of the apartment—so much so that the audience finds itself begging for the Cowans to leave the apartment rather than rooting for a friendship between the two uptight pairs. For a feature film to be shot within one location (excluding the brief opening scene of a long shot perspective of the fight between the two boys), there should be a pulse that exists in each character and through each emotion and exchange, which Carnage ultimately fails to properly execute. Scenes drag on, humor evaporates sometimes for minutes on end, and the characters, for the most part, fail to develop past parodies of their previously neurotic selves.

To be sure, the film does have its moments. The one constant is the continuous pouring and drinking of wine, which actually serves to loosen the characters up to a point where their screaming matches are bearable—and sometimes even entertaining—to watch. Reilly, in particular, manages to salvage his character through his hilarious defense of his hamster-dispensing and the toxic cobbler. The quarrels between the four characters are often spiked with clever quips and punch lines. The film also aptly explores the slow descent into drunken disorder for two couples who seem, almost painfully, to have their lives perfectly together. In the end, Carnage is not a terrible film; the actors display their talents even in spite of their confined roles and space, and Polanski once again proves his talent as a director and writer, working well against the limitations of the film's setting. The film's fatal weakness is its inability to leave the audience as engrossed as the characters are in themselves.