Carnage (2011)

Wonderfully offbeat film!

Some things I liked some I did not.

Ok... Let's be honest. It cannot be the best movie but is quite enjoyable. The movie has the potential to develop a great plot for future movies

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

A one-act play, centring on two sets of parents in a Brooklyn apartment discussing a violent episode between their children, sandwiched between a very short, speech-free prologue and epilogue as credits roll. The ostensibly liberal but clearly uptight mother and apparently more conciliatory but hen-pecked father of the victim invite the aggressor's parents (she overtly more community-spirited, he more put out as he manages a work crisis on his mobile) over to talk about the incident, as responsible adults, but the ensuing clash of attitudes prompts a descent into the sort of puerile behaviour that was precisely the intended subject of the conversation. Well cast, the four players interpret the sharp, witty lines with aplomb, one's sympathies leaping around from character to character as they gradually unravel, but without ever settling anywhere for long as each in turn cedes any moral high ground as quickly as they gained it. There is scorn aplenty (subtle and blatant) as rivalries and alliances are repeatedly struck and dashed. One can forgive the improbability of the meeting surviving several junctures when it would more naturally end because the dialogue continues to give. I guess you can't go far wrong with such a script in the hands of this director and group of actors and it makes for a very watchable film, although I'm guessing the stage is its real home and I'll look out for it there.

'Carnage' is a play filmed by none less than Roman Polanski, although one assumes he personally didn't oversee the location-setting shots in Brooklyn, New York. But it is in some senses a very American story, a pair of affluent liberal couples meet up to discuss amicably a conflict that has taken place between their children, and end up descending into a pit of mutual fury and bile. But the overall structure is forced: the natural thing to do when you can't reason with someone is to walk away, especially if you take particular pride in thinking of yourself as civilised. Without a locked room, the story makes less sense. And while it aspires to be a scathing satire on the pretensions of the privileged classes, most people are pretty partisan when it comes to their children. The film thus ends up as the tale of four not very nice people having an extended argument, full stop. Listening to them is one way you can pass eighty minutes of your own life, but you might find you have superior alternatives.

A movie that's a must watch for it's sheer stupidity that has a point of it's own. Yeah, at times you may feel the whole thing absurd and at the end you may confirm yourself that the whole movie is absurd too, but I thought this to be a more meaningful cinema and it's pure fun. You can't just lock parents over their children's act and then take it head on to reveal how childish the parents are, and how mature their kids are. Nothing is explicitly shown and nothing is elaborated, but yet in a few glimpses or frames, we can make out each character, and that's what it is so essential. For a writing to be called good, it has to be remembered by it's characters and their lines and that's what exactly this film does. Based on a play by Yasmina Reza, who has done a stupendous job in writing, Roman Polanski has tried effectively in depicting the emotions and what had each character been through. Even a tiny phone conversation that is actually so digressive becomes very important. Yes, its easy to remember each character coz they are just four. Tied up in an apartment where a hall, a kitchen or even bathroom become such important locations now. In Nearly 75 minutes of the length, the film could have gone anywhere but it ends at a point after which everything else seems pointless. How ever they may crib about each other, each character is unique and has his or her own misgivings. One has insecurity complex, one has cunningness to hide things, one is very upset due to her deeds, the other is so because he is not doing what he wants to. So in all it's absurdity too it has a meaning so very underplayed that by the end, all seems so meaningful then. The kids patch up so very easily than the parents, who bring their egos to everything they can and just cannot let their egos go. I am so happy to have watched this, and thanks to Roman Polanski to undertake this play and turn it to a cinema that is subtle, underplayed but the end is very warming and overwhelming. A 4/5 for a film that says "with minimum of things, you can still tell a very important story". This is the kind of film even I would love to be a part of.

How bad a movie can be marketed ? Just as bad as in lightening a candle then putting it under a bushel.I mean, you call this movie Carnage and people will expect it to be about true social interactions and not of some amazing Arnold Schwarzenegger full of only bodies left flick ? How about the pink movie poster? Is that off the Helloo Kitty's private top of the castle room? That's how you have the main stream walking away instead of acclaiming your achievement. And I think it's acclamable, because it talks to every single individual of the age of the characters.Flawed it is, the script is both magic and weak. But the magic is such that the weakness is forgiven with indulgence.On the other side, either Jodie Foster was tired/not interested, either this movie did show the limits of her talent. Even the directing is flawed, quite a bit. But who could keep the inertia on a steady go in a script engraved with a perpetual dialog like a theater act.Go see this movie if you haven't yet. It talks about you, your thoughts, your frustrations and those lines that most of the time have never quit the tip of the tongue.