Politeness gets pulverized in this outrageous comedy of manners
The Summer movie season has officially come to a close bringing to an end one of the most dismal showings of what was once the time of the unstoppable blockbuster. The last breath the season has within it sees the expansion of The Weinstein Company’s long-delayed period drama Tulip Fever. Filmed three years ago, the romance tale stars Dane DeHaan and Alicia Vikander as a pair of forbidden lovers and Christoph Waltz as the malevolent figure bound to keep them apart.
It’s another villainous turn from Waltz, who can do slimy like no other, which has been brought out excellently by the likes of Quentin Tarantino, Michel Gondry and Tim Burton. However it was Roman Polanski that was able to inspire one of Waltz’s most unlikable characters by mixing in a healthy brand of dark comedy in the 2011’s Carnage.
Based on the successful stage play, Polanski directs Waltz, Jodie Foster, Kate Winslet and John C. Reilly in the story of two sets of parents who meet to discuss a somewhat violent innocent that took place in a local park between their two young sons. What starts out as a civilized meeting between Nancy (Winslet) and Alan (Waltz) at the Brooklyn apartment of Penelope (Foster) and Michael (Reilly) ends up turning into a savage afternoon where buttons are pushed and sensible behavior is thrown out the window.
Never did a film’s marketing ring truer than in the case of Carnage when the film was billed as a comedy of manners. What makes Carnage so powerful as a comedy is that it manages laughs from a number of resources, yet never once has to go low brow. The act of Michael getting rid of the school hamster becomes a serious, recurring point of contention for both Nancy and Penelope, while the amount of attention and interest paid by Alan and Nancy to a cobbler Penelope has made, is ripe with awkward humor. The careful showdown between Alan and Michael as they begin talking down to one another in a battle of skills, morality and class when discussing what they do for a living is just as funny as the moment the former walks in on Penelope and Michael making fun of his nickname he has for Nancy. Above all else, there something absurdly hilarious in terms of fate and destiny when it comes to the idea that these four are bound to each other in ways that are beyond their control. With various forces insistent on keeping their meeting from ending, an exasperated Nancy, no longer able to take it, finally shout out: “Why are we still in this house?!”
Making Carnage so dynamic is that it’s not just what two couples at the center of it are about, but rather what they think they’re about. Both sets of spouses are as different as can be. Penelope and John are open-minded, somewhat progressive, empathic and definitely peace-loving, while Nancy and Alan are cultured, upper-class, educated and generally well-rounded. However the one commonality that both pairs share is the fact that they’re trying to be people that they aren’t. This is illustrated in a variety of ways, including phony facades, like the one Penelope puts on when she acts concerned after Nancy vomits in the living room before uttering: “stupid bitch” as she’s searching for a bucket in the hallway. Other instances focus on the specific choosing of words which leads to speculation, such as in the film’s first scene when Alan hones in on the term “armed” when used in Penelope and Michael’s statement to describe his and Nancy’s son’s actions. In what is such a brilliant stroke of storytelling, a wicked snowball effect ensues from the initial issue, that fuels the fire and then becomes less and less of a focus as the principles of society which the characters stand by, or pretend to stand by, eventually become dissected by one another. Before long, every person is reduced to their true primal selves. In the film’s first half, Michael is shown to be continuously optimistic and uttering phrases such as: “You can’t get over something while you’re under it.” Yet by the second act, he’s been pushed to the edge so much, that he finds himself exclaiming:“You know my wife dressed me up as a liberal?!”
Performance-wise, Carnage is a film lover’s dream come true based on the sheer strength of its cast alone. The fact that each member of the quartet is as different as can be in terms of acting styles makes things incredibly interesting when seeing these eclectic actors work opposite one another. This piece rests almost squarely on the actors to make it tick, move and flow and with Foster’s intense emotion, Winslet’s classical methods, Reilly’s theatrical grandness and Waltz’s european sensibilities, Carnage more than excels.
On some level, Carnage was never going to connect with regular moviegoing audiences. It’s hard to convince moviegoers to embrace a film about four bickering parents who engage in verbally tearing each other apart for the length of an entire film; a fact responsible for the movies’s low box-office take. However, critics embraced the film and Carnage went on to earn its two leading ladies a pair of Golden Globe nominations as well as a handful of Best Ensemble prizes for its cast.
Although the film is never able to shake the fact that it started life as a play, Polanski proves enough of a master to the point where Carnage’s stage origins prove an interesting mix for his cinematic stylings. The director manages a number of telling artistic flourishes throughout the film, such as showing the outside grey daylight getting darker and darker as everyone proves unable to maintain politeness and civility breaks down. Making the film’s effect all the more involving is the fact that Carnage is shot in real time with minimal breaks in the action, much in the vein of Alfred Hitchcock’s Rope. The film’s ending, which is mainly a shot of the two couple’s children playing together sunny day while a hamster scurries along, may be the most hilarious aspect of the film. It shows how the young see the world in purer, more simplistic terms because they can afford to, and how the nature of individuals to complicate life as they get older remains both true and outrageously funny.
