Carnage

Carnage (2011) is about two couples sitting in an apartment discussing a fight between their sons, and the conversation dismantles four adults in eighty minutes. One boy hit another with a stick in a park and broke his teeth. The parents meet for a civilised discussion. It is over within minutes, but nobody can leave: they walk to the lift, they come back, another coffee is poured, a remark is made, and it starts again. It runs in real time and entirely inside one apartment. Nobody gets out of the door. As it goes the alliances collapse. First the two couples against each other, then the women against the men, then everyone against their own spouse. The boys' fight is forgotten completely. It is adapted from Yasmina Reza's play Le Dieu du carnage, which she co-wrote with Polanski. The story is set in Brooklyn but was not shot in New York. Polanski could not legally enter America; the whole apartment was built on a stage in Paris and the park exteriors filmed separately. Jodie Foster, Kate Winslet, Christoph Waltz and John C. Reilly star. Waltz's constantly ringing phone is the best source of humour; every call is with a pharmaceutical company. A scene of vomiting splits the film in half, and after it nobody is polite. It runs 80 minutes. Good for: stage adaptations, sharp dialogue, and black comedy. Less good for: there is a lot of shouting, nobody is likeable, and the single room is claustrophobic.