Weekend Rental: “Carnage”

Carnage is a 2011 black comedy film co-written and directed by Roman Polanski, based on the play God of Carnage by French playwright Yasmina Reza.

When two grade-school boys get into a confrontation in the park that results in one boy hitting the other in the mouth with a stick, their parents meet in a Brooklyn apartment to discuss the matter. The parents of the boy wielding the stick, Alan and Nancy Cowan (Waltz and Winslet), visit the home of Michael and Penelope Longstreet (Reilly and Foster), who are the parents of the boy who was struck. Their meeting is initially intended to be a short visit but various circumstances continue to draw it out.

At first, the verbal exchange between the two married couples maintains a high civility factor but when the differences between them start to emerge, subtly at first and eventually glaringly, the couples begin to turn on each other and finally each on their own spouse. As their civility and inhibition washes away, aided by a bottle of Scotch whisky, the geniality vanishes, descending fully into verbal warfare with all their character flaws laid bare. A must see for any couple with kids!