One of my biggest pet peeves as a parent is when friends or family members give unsolicited advice in raising my kid, especially when they go on and on as if they are experts on parenting.  That is why the upcoming black comedy drama film, Carnage, is probably going to be interesting.  It is a razor sharp, biting comedy centered on parental differences.

Carnage

It all started with two boys getting in some sort of playground fight, leading to one boy hitting the other with a stick,  leaving him with two missing teeth. Carnage follows their two sets of parents who meet up to talk about what happened.  The parents of the aggressive kid, Alan and Nancy Cowen, visit the aggrieved parents, Penelope and Michael Longstreet to initiate a reconciliation between their sons.  At first every one is being exceedingly polite, conversing over cobbler and coffee.  But the more they talk, the more the veneer of good manners is eroded and the civility soon crumbles.  A polite discussion of child-rearing soon escalates into verbal warfare and it becomes an all-out explosion of anger and emotion about child-rearing, marriage and careers.  With all four parents revealing their true colors, none of them will escape the carnage.

Roman Polanski directs and also wrote the screenplay of the biting, confrontational and humorous film which is an adaptation of Yasmina Reza’s award-winning Broadway play, God of Carnage.  Since Carnage is based on a stage play, the setting is limited to the interiors of an apartment.  With the characters spend the entirety of the film inside the house, it feels very Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf-like.  But then, this is where Polanski is at his best—filming in close quarters.  The film is an international co-production of France, Germany and Poland and, although set in Brooklyn, New York, Carnage was shot in Paris because with his legal troubles, Polanski’s can’t step foot in American soil.

Carnage Release Date

Carnage hits selected theaters on December 16, 2011

Carnage Pictures

Who’s In It?

• Jodie Foster as Penelope Longstreet
• Kate Winslet as Nancy Cowan
• Christoph Waltz as Alan Cowan
• John C. Reilly as Michael Longstreet

The Good Stuff?

Carnage has an amazing group of talent in its cast.  It has three are Academy Award Winners with Jodie Foster, Kate Winslet and Christoph Waltz and John C. Reilly is an Academy Award Nominee.  This could probably be the best acted comedy film.

The Bad Stuff?

The cast may look like a list of who’s who of the Academy Awards but I cannot get past the fact that Carnage is directed by the guy who raped a child.  I know he’s made a lot of movies ever since and I get that he’s some sort of filmmaker genius but it doesn’t change the fact that he did what he did.