They try to keep things civil. It’s what enlightened urban bourgeoisie do. Yeah, one family’s son whacked the other family’s son in the face with a stick in the heat of an argument at a New York City park. But they’re 11. And we’ve seen the altercation under the opening credits. No sense losing one’s cool over that.
But “Carnage” is all about losing one’s cool. Two couples – four parents – meet and over 75 increasingly testy and often hilarious minutes, they charm, bicker, cajole, parse words, reason with and bait one another in this very entertaining Roman Polanski film based on a French play. Alliances shift as characters attempt to defuse the debate.
It’s one couple vs. the other couple, then one husband and the other wife against the other two, then wives team up against husbands. Yasmina Reza constructed a delicious “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” for the age of helicopter parents – hovering over their kids, obsessing over everything.
One minute, it’s the guys (John C. Reilly and Christoph Waltz) shrugging, “Boys will be boys,” the next it’s the victim’s mom (Jodie Foster) shrieking “Their son is a threat to Homeland Security!”
Then the guys mix it up, the housewares seller (Reilly) pushing the buttons of the corporate lawyer (Waltz). The kids issue fades into the background as egos and value systems clash.