'Carnage' delivers with a disturbing portrait of humanity

By Brian Biekman     1/25/12 6:00pm

Carnage is one of those rare films that is able to tactfully weave humor into uncomfortable and sometimes depressing situations. When it wants us to laugh, we laugh. When it wants us to cringe, we do that too. At the same time, it reveals a lot about us as men and women, as parents and children, and as couples and individuals. Despite the title, this film is not some kind of Shakespearean tragedy that climaxes in a bloodbath that kills everybody. It is not about carnage of the body but of the mind, heart and soul.

In Carnage, Penelope Longstreet (Jodie Foster, The Silence of the Lambs) and Michael Longstreet (John C. Reilly, Chicago) have a son whose teeth are knocked out in a schoolyard fight. When Nancy Cowan (Kate Winslet, Titanic) and Alan Cowan (Christoph Waltz, Inglourious Basterds) find out their son was on the other end of the fight, they go to the Longstreets' apartment to make amends. The boys are gone, so their parents have to settle the conflict themselves. The Longstreets are an upper-middle-class family without flashy occupations. The Cowans, on the other hand, are wealthy and carry a subtle sense of entitlement. We can already feel some uncomfortable tension brewing between the families.

When they start discussing the fight, the tension and discomfort only get stronger. From this point, most films would follow the cliche conflict-resolution route: The tension turns into heated argument, the heated argument turns into hurtful words and name-calling, the adults realize their own childish behavior and finally, the couples become best friends. Not this film. With each word another layer of pretentiousness is stripped away, and by the end, each character reveals the ugliness at his or her core. Carnage is an emotional roller coaster in freefall.

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Writer and director Roman Polanski (The Pianist) and writer Yasmina Reza (who wrote the play God of Carnage, the basis for this film) deserve praise for making a film that accurately reflects real life instead of trying to be a crowd-pleaser. Carnage shows our vulnerability: Both men and women obsess over the most insignificant things. In the midst of arguing, parents can be more immature than their own kids, even if it's about the well-being of those kids. The most well-mannered people in public are often the cruelest in private, while the rudest people in public are often simply the more honest.

Carnage has well-timed jokes to alleviate the discomfort of brutally honest character portrayals. Throughout the film, any tense argument is interrupted by calls from Alan's boss. We find out that Alan is a lawyer defending a company that is selling potentially fatal high-blood-pressure medication. Later, Michael gets a call from his mother and finds out she is taking that blood-pressure medication. Michael hounds Alan until he explains that his own company's medication could kill her. About an hour into the film, Alan's phone is broken. While the men work tirelessly to fix it, the women point and laugh at their husbands' obsession with material things.

Carnage only has four important character roles, and except for the first and last minute, the entire movie takes place in the Longstreets' apartment. This type of film lives or dies with its cast, and Polanski could not have chosen four better actors for the job. Reilly is the only established comedic actor, but the others step up and execute the delicate balance between funny and tragic.

In Carnage, the Longstreets and the Cowans talk about the beginnings of their relationships: the hope and optimism they once had. This film shows the failure of hope and optimism in marriages, families and individuals and compresses it into 79 minutes. As someone who witnessed his parents' relationship slowly disintegrate, Carnage hit very close to home for me. There is no "look on the bright side" attitude to this film; you won't leave the theater inspired. Carnage does what most movies are afraid to do: ?It shows truth.

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