Carnage ———————————————5/10
Directed by Roman Polanski, Written by Roman Polanski and Yasmina Reza, Starring Kate Winslet, Christoph Waltz, Jodie Foster and John C. Reilly
Fandango Synopsis - After two boys duke it out on a playground, the parents of the “victim” invite the parents of the “bully” over to work out their issues. A polite discussion of childrearing soon escalates into verbal warfare, with all four parents revealing their true colors. None of them will escape the carnage.
Positives- CARNAGE was ridiculous and mostly funny for nearly the first hour. The dialogue was quick and the film moved along nicely. It was farcical and very stagey, but I accepted that and enjoyed that hour. I admired that Polanski didn’t feel the need to make the film more cinematic, but instead just gave us these four characters played by good actors, put them in a room and let them go.
Christoph Waltz was given the best role and was great in it. His character doesn’t take the situation serious in the least and makes the least effort to mask that. He’s miserable and just wants to get out of there, but finally is able to get some joy in watching the others unravel once they start in on the alcohol.
John C. Reilly was good too. He always plays a great drunk. His character plays the concerned father and mediator of the meeting for a long while, but eventually he can’t take the charade anymore and reveals who he really is, which is a complete 180 to what he had shown.
I think Foster and Winslet more so had some strong moments as well in the first hour of the film. It’s a great foursome of actors who are fun to watch work together.
CARNAGE highlighted a few interesting aspects of human nature. It showed the tendency toward forced pleasantness and faux concern, but also the ugly or unrefined true feelings and beliefs that most people harbor and rarely share.
Negatives- Foster and Winslet had some strong moments in the films first hour, but once they got into the alcohol they seemingly got completely trashed in a matter of minutes and things went downhill. Those two and Reilly to an extent way overplay the drunkenness, which make the last fifteen minutes of CARNAGE embarrassing and pretty unbearable. Foster and Winslet are cartoon drunks. I was having a great time and then I couldn’t wait for the shit to stop. Oddly, this seventy five minute film was too long.
I found Foster to be the weak link of the film. Again, she had some good moments, but as a whole it didn’t work. I think it could have a lot to do with the character she was playing.
Verdict- CARNAGE is a weird film to score because it truly was fun for fifty five minutes, but that last fifteen minutes was so bad that it’s hard to recommend it. I love the idea of putting four good actors together in a room and just letting them go without much interference. Waltz was a big standout. He had the best character to play and gave the best performance. Reilly was good too, but as with Winslet and Foster he at times went too far. When things got immediately drunken, things got annoying. The film did illustrate a few interesting aspects of human nature with these four going from strangers to pretty intimate quickly. I think CARNAGE is fascinating at times and I’d like to have seen the play it’s adapted from, but it goes too off the rails late to recommend. I think you can skip CARNAGE or watch it, but turn it off at the fifty five minute mark and pretend the rest doesn’t exist and it’s a good film.
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