Carnage

Carnage is based on a foreign stage play (French, which feels right for this story), and still sounds and looks like a play despite being translated (talky and stagy). Two sets of parents get together to discuss an indicent involving their sons--one boy smacked another with a branch, breaking two of his teeth.

The action all takes place in a NYC apartment belonging to the victim's parents (Jodie Foster and John C Reilly), she wrote a book about Africa and has deep feelings about African atrocities, and working on a new book on Darfur, she is also an art enthusiast; he owns a housewares store (neither employment sounds tony enough to afford what their apartment and acoutrements look like). At the start she is typing up a simple statement for the attacker's parents (Kate Winslet and Christoph Walz), she works at an investment bank and he is an attorney currently working for a pharma company on a class action suit against one of their medicines. It is not explained why the statement is being typed up as apparently both sets of parents want to settle things amicably and there is no mention of a lawsuit or anything like that (I guess it is just a premise to get them in the same room together).

So you can see the film already sets up both sets of parents as being opposites type of people--homey and caring versus those that are interested in making money. But within the first few minutes I got the vibe that there was a lot of veiled aggression, especially in Jodie Foster's character (which comes out big time in the rest of the story). It ends up not even being about the boys' conflict, but about class and social differences between and among this foursome. Both couples eventually reveal unhappiness with their marriages and their partner's personalities.


The movie was only about 75 minutes, which I think I read somewhere but forgot. This was good because I was really restless while watching this film, and especially annoyed at the Jodie Foster character and her acting (reminded me of a ranting Tom Cruise for some reason). By the time the movie ended I thought that was the end of the "first act" of the play but it was in fact the end.

Kate Winslet's character comes off as the sanest and most sympathetic for me. John C. Reilly plays his usual affable character. Christoph Walz's performance was just okay, I did not feel he distinguished his performance in any way individual to him. He was just a typical type A lawyer always answering his cell phone for business which was a bone of contention with his wife.

I am not sure this can be called a drama, as it certainly gives a lot of laughs (although I am not usually a laugh-out-loud person at the movies). Is it mocking these people? I did like the staging, using mirrors and seating arrangements to move the characters around since they were limited to being in this one location.