Carnage (15) (From The Northern Echo)

Carnage (15)

5:23pm Thursday 2nd February 2012 in Film

Rating: 4/5

APART from two scenes book-ending the film, Roman Polanski’s screen adaptation of Yasmin Reza’s play is confined to the apartment of a couple, Michael and Penelope Longstreet, whose son has been hit in the face with a stick by another boy.

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His parents, Alan and Nancy Cowan, are visiting to apologise for their son’s violent outburst.

What follows is relatively brief drama – a swift 79 minutes – as the attempts of the couples to resolve their sons’ differences become increasingly hostile and verbally violent.

Oh, and there’s a tremendous vomiting scene with disastrous results for an expensive art book.

By eschewing fancy film trickery or camerawork, Polanski allows his quartet of actors to let themselves go in a feast of fine acting as the constantly shifting arguments see the foursome run the gamut of emotions.

Kate Winslet’s initially nervous Nancy and Jodie Foster’s art-loving Penelope spar entertainingly as the mothers, while John C Reilly’s laidback Michael takes it all in his stride until the home truths start to be revealed. Best of all is Christophe Waltz (so good in Tarantino’s Inglorious Basterds) as a chap who seems unable to separate himself from his mobile phone.