Adapting
the play The God of Carnage into a motion picture seemed like a strange
choice to me for a number of reasons, but most prominently being the fact that
the play consists of four actors doing very little but talk on stage for around
90 minutes or so. Don't get me wrong, I'm not insulting it – on the contrary,
in the atmosphere of the theatre this format often works very well, as we can
focus on the script and characters with little distractions – but,
traditionally, this doesn't translate particularly well to the medium of motion
pictures.
Yet,
despite being a shot-for-shot, or rather angle-for-shot, remake of the play
(which feels like we're observing it from the best seats in the audience),
Carnage actually does work. It's a
hugely entertaining slice of comedic drama, with emphasis on outrageous
attitudes and unpleasant characters being humiliated and ridiculed for the sake
of comedy. The story begins with two boys having a fight in the park, which
leads to one attacking the other with a stick. It then moves on to their
parents having a meeting discussing their sons' behaviour and the subsequent
action they should take. As the afternoon progresses, however, the social
boundaries between the characters break down, and they become far more
aggressive towards each other, slowly reverting back to their childish
instincts.
The success
of this movie must partly be attributed to the skill of director Roman
Polanski. After adapting the phenomenally dull The Ghost a few years back, it
appears he's back on form with his latest adaptation (he has, for some reason,
had a lack of original ideas of late). While it is true that, yes, the movie is
basically a filming of the aforementioned play, it's done so in a style that
retains the original atmosphere (to some extent).
However, I
believe that the real reason why the movie is such a success is because of the
excellent cast; John C. Reilly, Jodie Foster, Kate Winslet and Christoph Waltz,
all of whom are Oscar-nominated and the latter three are Oscar-winning (Jodie
Foster has actually won two, the greedy...woman). Reilly is very funny, drawing
on his moronic everyman image, and Foster and Winslet are both good – Foster in
particular plays against type, with her character acting both needy and
vulnerable – but it's Waltz who manages to steal the show as an unpleasant corporate
executive who can't stay off the phone. The cast pull off the tricky feat in
keeping the audience interested in four very dislikeable people throughout the
course of the movie – it's worth saying that, with maybe the exception of
Winslet's character (to some extent), we feel no sympathy for these characters.
While the movie
is by no means a masterpiece, it's certainly refreshing to see a Hollywood
picture with such a sharp script, free of any form of sentimentality of
redemption, just focusing on comedy and satire. And for that, I respect it.
★★★½
