Carnage | Film review

Roman Polanski knows how to wring suspense out of close quarters, from the apartment trilogy of Repulsion, Rosemary’s Baby and The Tenant to his underrated 1994 adaptation of Death and the Maiden. Still, there’s only so much one can do with Yasmina Reza’s God of Carnage, a glib 2006 one-act in which two Brooklyn couples (Kate Winslet and Christoph Waltz; Jodie Foster and John C. Reilly) meet for an afternoon to discuss an appropriate penalty for a fight between their sons…and then gradually reveal themselves to be as boorish and petty as the kids.

On the one hand, you couldn’t ask for a better production. Polanski, framing tight shots in widescreen, gives the material a claustrophobic feel unachievable onstage (and certainly missing in last spring’s much broader Goodman production). There may also be subtext here: Alluding to the director’s legal troubles, The New Yorker’s Richard Brody noted that the film is essentially about four people trying to determine what happened between two individuals who aren’t present. Others have pointed out that the film, set entirely within an apartment, is the first picture Polanski shot after being released from house arrest. These readings imbue the proceedings with an undercurrent of anger, but the script itself remains inconsequential. The terrific Waltz, making no pretense of politesse as he takes disruptive phone calls, seems as impatient with the movie as his character is with his fellow parents. Meanwhile, the usually excellent Foster seems uncharacteristically flustered. Perhaps she’s wondering why she’s there.