Kate Winslet, Jodie Foster, John C. Reilly and Christoph Waltz turn Polanksi's film adaptation of Yasmina Reza's play into a hit.
A film adaptation of Yasmina Reza's wordy, middle-class play, God of Carnage, doesn't sound like a great idea, not even with Roman Polanksi directing. But a cast consisting of Kate Winslet, Jodie Foster, John C. Reilly and Christoph Waltz are what make Carnage really work despite Polanksi's lack of style in his straightforward cinematography.
Winslet and Waltz play Nancy and Alan Cowan whose son Zach has hit his friend Ethan, son of Foster and Reilly (Penelope and Michael Longstreet). What unfolds in the Longstreets' art-coated New York apartment is a hilarious battle of social politics that gets funnier as the political correctness and middle class facade breaks away and the dynamics of the arguing couples twist and turn.
All four actors are on form, Reilly in particular stands out at a sweet, supportive everyman who is in fact so jovially ordinary that his overly sincere wife is secretly at her wits end with his content lack of ambition. Oddly, Polanski is also unambitious about his film and seems happy to let this one be all about the cast as he lets the arguments unfold without a slow camera sweep in sight. It's probably a wise move as the screenplay he's created with Yasmin Reza is perfect.
It pits Jodie Foster's concerned Africa-enthusiast writer against Kate Winslet's polite investment banker who's more ashamed of puking all over the art books than the fact that her son bust up another kid. As the scotch is poured the lightweight women try to find a place for their troubles in a world where other parents are fighting famine. As Foster reminds them: “Don't tell me about suffering in Africa. I know about suffering in Africa!”.
As they watch their wives lose it, the husbands reveal their own morally reprehensible characteristics with Christoph Waltz' corporate attorney flying ahead in the game of who's screwing up the world the fastest. But the funniest battle is over how they're supposed to raise their kids. No one really gets the last word but it's worth hearing Foster preach collective concern to steely Waltz who simply prefers to leave matters to the God of Carnage.
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