CARNAGE (Roman Polanski, Sony Pictures Classic, 2011)

When I heard one of my favorite directors Roman Polanski had a new film coming out last year I was excited. When I heard about the all star cast he had assembled for the film I was even more eager than I had been. Imagine my disappointment when the film was in and out of the theatres so fast that one could easily question if the film existed. Such was the fate of CARNAGE (Roman Polanski, Sony Pictures Classic, 2011) that it barely registered a blip on the radar. And after viewing the film the only truly remarkable thing that stands out to me is the inevitable comparisons to ROPE (Alfred Hitchcock, Warner Bros., 1948). CARNAGE is deeply reminiscent to ROPE due to its many similarities. Both films are adapted from plays, both have limited casts with some really good performances and both rely on a theatre atmosphere setting meaning they both take place in one setting. There are deeper similarities, good and bad, all of which hinder CARNAGE in any comparison to the Hitchcock film. Like ROPE, CARNAGE often times gets extremely stagnant in regards to pacing. The single setting for the film starts to wear on the viewer as we simply tire of the location. While this same type of single setting often works in theatre it doesn't in a film. I felt bored and limited by what the setting offered and this also hampered the films pace. Further deepening this effect was the contrived situations in which the characters were placed in order to keep each other in the single setting. Watching the film there is an immediate tension and dislike between the Cowans (Christoph Waltz and Kate Winslet) and Longstreets (Thomas C Reilly and Jodie Foster). How many times can the Cowans make to leave the apartment? I will comment more on this later but with this tension and animosity towards each other, the longer the couples stay in the same room together is going to leave the viewers questioning the plausibility of the action. The single worst thing a film of this nature can do is raise questions such as these. That would be the single worst thing other than leaving no indelible imprint. The film does not linger in your psyche nor is it memorable in any way. It's been one week since I viewed it and other than a few instances I can't recall much from the film. Maybe time and multiple viewings will change this but in today's world you really only ever get one shot. Hitchcock is known universally as the master of suspense and this is what CARNAGE lacks above all else. The narrative never rises or falls, it flatlines. There is no suspense other than to question where the film is headed but even that answer leaves the viewer feeling blasé. By the end of the film we are left with four nominally ugly people left to live out the rest of their lives. The film does have a great cast and each performer gives a class effort. Interestingly to me; Foster, Winslet and Waltz have all won Oscars yet it is Reilly that stands above in this role. Maybe because he is playing the blue collar "Everyman" role that we can all most readily identify with but here is an actor that doesn't often get the publicity as a supremely talented performer. This is a mistake because he is really good and I can only imagine that honors will be forthcoming in the future for him. Finally, the film does leave me with one question and actually it may resolve the issue I had with the contrived ways in which the film kept its cast in place. Underneath our polished exteriors, our fabulous jobs and lives, the facades we put in place when dealing with people; do we simply not care? Do we just struggle through the meaningless and inane conversations, listen to vapid people, deal with ridiculous jobs, families and settings in a vain attempt to put some meaning to our lives. When there might not be any at all? If so that raises a very sad specter and paints a picture of a very vacuous people in a self centered time.