Carnage

This morning's old gits' film at "The Showroom" was the 2011 black comedy "Carnage" starring Jodie Foster and John C Reilly as the Longstreets and Kate Winslet and Christopher Waltz as the Cowans. They have met up, as urbane middle class New Yorkers, to talk in a civilised manner about a recent physical skirmish between their respective eleven year old sons in a nearby park. Directed by Roman Polanski, the movie proceeds to strip away veneers of politeness, leaving all four characters severely challenged and emotionally exposed. It is a very intense piece of cinema with the action totally confined to the Longstreets' apartment. There are many laughs as we see the layers peeled away, recognising that all of us habitually suppress many of our truest feelings for the sake of social cohesion.

Friends Mike and Jill were behind me in the ticket queue. Afterwards, they shared my feeling that there were moments in the entertainment when you wanted the camera to just get out of that apartment, to reduce the intensity and simply lighten up.  But we all thought it was very good and to Polanski, Reilly, Waltz, Winslet and the ageing Foster, I say Bravo! A nod must also be given to French playwright Yasmina Reza who crafted the stage play "God of Carnage" from which this excellent film grew. Though you wouldn't know it, it was pretty much all filmed in Paris where Polanski, now 78, still lives in exile.