Carnage

From a distance, unable to hear the dialogue or make out faces in the crowd, we witness an incident of pre-teen playground bullying.

That leads to an extended confrontation that lies at the heart of Carnage, a four-character study from Oscar-winning director Roman Polanski (The Pianist) in which bloodshed is replaced by verbal warfare.

After the incident, the four parents agree upon a statement by which the son of affluent Alan (Christoph Waltz) and Nancy (Kate Winslet) is implicated for striking the son of middle-class Michael (John C. Reilly) and Penelope (Jodie Foster) with a stick. It isn’t 10 minutes into the film before the couples are at the door with an amicable admission of guilt, but they never are able to leave.

As the film proceeds, we learn more about these characters — who is being honest and who is hiding secrets, and what each person really feels about the others — and their children. It’s not long before they dispense with the cobbler and coffee, and the pleasantries and small talk, and inadvertently escalate the socioeconomic tension that’s been bubbling underneath the surface since they first met.

Thus opens a dialogue of more than an hour that becomes more unsettling, as well as darkly funny, as accusations and conciliatory motives change along with audience sympathy. The bickering also threatens both relationships.

It’s not surprising to note that Carnage is based on a stage play by Yasmina Reza, who co-wrote the screenplay with Polanski. The film has a few big laughs, but doesn’t seem to have any larger social convictions in mind.

Needless to say, the film probably would have worked best as an acting showcase on stage with its one-room setting. Polanski and his team do as much as they can with limited visual resources, in terms of camera movement and shot composition, to heighten the tension. Yet mostly, the film relies on its actors, and the quartet is up to the task.

With its abbreviated running time and limited setting, Carnage feels like a side project for Polanski, but one that fits in with his risk-taking tendencies and some of his favorite cynical themes. Yet an edgier approach to the material could have made it more than a mildly compelling diversion.

Rated R, 79 minutes.