Tension, unease, claustrophobia all trademarks of Roman Polanski. If you enjoy watching people squirming in uneasy situations, he’s your man, and the obvious choice to direct a film version of Yasmina Reza’s Tony award-winning play. This is the man who made Knife In The Water, Repulsion and Frantic toe-curlingly tense all.
Carnage is a four-hander, about two sets of parents whose sons have brawled and they meet up in a New York apartment to sort the problem out. It’s tense, terse and extremely funny but does it add up to a film or merely a stage play in front of a camera?
It’s classic Polanski territory. John C. Reilly and Jodie Foster are Michael and Penelope Longstreet, whose son has had two teeth knocked out by Nancy and Alan Cowan’s boy. The Cowans, played by Kate Winslet and Christoph Waltz, visit the Longstreets in their New York apartment to work out what to do. Very early on it’s established this is not about money the insurance will cover the dental costs instead it’s a moral argument. Are the Cowans to blame for their son’s violent outburst? Is it just boys being boys? Is society to blame?
Initially it’s all very polite drinks are made and drunk, flowers are complimented on, but pretty soon the cracks start to appear. Reilly’s Michael is an apparently easy-going man happy to accept that boys fight, and no fuss should be made, but it soon emerges his wife has dressed him as a liberal’ and he believes in action over words. His wife Penelope is a highly-strung shrew, obsessed with the sufferings of Africa but even more obsessed with her book collection. Never has an on-screen wife given her husband such a withering look as when she discovers he has forgotten to put the Coke in the fridge.
The Cowans however are very different doing very well for themselves, judging by their expensive clothes. She is determined to defend their son. He is happy to admit the boy is a maniac’. Waltz’s Alan is an absolute hoot playful, witty but with an underlying menace that comes to the surface too often. When Michael breaks out the whiskey the layers are peeled back, and the underlying menace really starts to come to the fore. His speeches are constantly interrupted by calls to his Blackberry, which reveal him to be a businessman who takes no prisoners.
Carnage is beautifully written and paced as a play but as a film it feels stilted and stifling. Polanski’s camera is trapped inside a small New York apartment (apart from the bookend shots of a park where the crime is committed), and it feels at times merely like a recording of an interesting theatre experience. The push and pull of the argument is sustained over the short running time, but every time the Cowans move towards the door with their coats on, it’s pretty inevitable they are going to be pulled back into the flat for the discussion to continue.
It’s an interesting debate which never quite comes to any conclusion, and unusually for Polanski there is no violence or deaths to conclude matters. The most violent moment is Winslet’s projectile vomiting over some precious art catalogues, one that will inevitably feature on YouTube for years to come was it the apple and pear cobbler?
Overall Verdict: Effective but ultimately frustrating piece of moral theatre placed on the screen. It’s entertaining while it’s there but it leaves no great trace, a shame for a theme that suggests something far more meaty.
Reviewer: Mike Martin