It is likely that director Roman Polanski will not be buying a condo near you any time soon. Not only because he would be arrested if he set foot on North American soil—he’s a fugitive from American justice—but because he clearly sees the confined spaces of apartment life as stifling, claustrophobic and toxic. In movie after movie—“The Tenant,” “Repulsion,” “Rosemary’s Baby” and now “Carnage”—these closed in spaces are scenes of tension and strife.
Based on Yazmina Reza’s play “God of Carnage” the film has a simple premise. Nancy and Alan Cowan (Kate Winslet and Christoph Waltz) pay a visit to the Brooklyn apartment of Penelope and Michael Longstreet (Jodie Foster and John C. Reilly) to discuss an altercation between their children in a nearby park. At first, at last superficially, all seems to go well, despite Alan’s insistence on having loud cell phone conversations and Penelope’s passive aggressive tirades. Soon, however, civility gives way to anarchy.
“Carnage” is a comedy of manners—bad manners. The humor—and there are many laughs—however, come from the situations and not jokes with punch lines.
Polanski deliberately keeps the style of the film simple and focuses on the performances and the dialogue. It’s all about the words—and one unexpected but spectacular puke scene—and not one syllable is out of place. Only Polanski, with the aid of two great actors—Waltz and O’Reilly—could make a conversation about toilet flush mechanisms so menacing and so funny.
It’s a sharply written war of words performed by actors who are clearly relishing the chance to get under the skins of their characters and each other. Nancy, Penelope and Michael are all as thinned skinned as the cheap veneer on Michael’s bookshelf. Only Alan, the cutthroat lawyer, seems to understand and appreciate the dynamic in play.
As the undercurrent of tension in the early scenes gives way to the overt hostility of the climax you can see the actors stretching their muscles.
Although her character is tightly wound Jody Foster has rarely been this loose on screen. It’s a highly theatrical performance, complete with bulging forehead veins and furrowed brows, which expertly reveals not only the character’s political correctness, but also her self pity and ultimately her self loathing. When she says, “There’s no reason to lose our cool here,” you know she doesn’t really mean it.
Waltz finds his best role since “Inglourious Basterds” and Winslet is gloriously unhinged. Only O’Reilly seems slightly out of place. He’s fine in the early scenes as the big friendly lug trying to avoid confrontation, but less effective later on when his true colors are revealed.
“Carnage” pokes fun at the middle class, constantly shifting the power from couple to couple, gender to gender, class to class and person to person. It’s a microcosm of society, a fluid dynamic that, despite an abrupt ending that may leave some scratching their heads, is a fascinating look at what lies underneath the carefully manicured facades many of us present to the public.
It’s a pop culture cliché that all child actors grow up to become the subject of tragic tabloid stories. Sure adulthood was not kind to Gary Coleman or Jodie Sweetin, (although she does earn a point or two for the title of her tell-all, unSweetined), but there are dozens of kid actors who grew up to have fulfilling careers in Hollywood.
Jason Bateman is one of the lucky ones who made the transition to adult roles with ease. At twelve he debuted as James Ingalls on Little House on the Prairie and, dozens of credits later, this weekend stars in Identity Thief opposite comedy it-girl Melissa McCarthy.
The longevity of his career is dwarfed by Jodie Foster, whose forty-seven years on screen have seen her do everything from Disney movies like Freaky Friday to playing an underage prostitute in Taxi Driver to winning Oscars for The Accused and The Silence of the Lambs. “I don’t know why people think child actresses in particular are screwed up,” she says. “I see kids everywhere who are totally bored. I’ve never been bored a day in my life.”
Mickey Rooney’s cameo appearance in The Muppets marked ten decades of acting in movies. He was just a year-and-a-half old when he began performing in his parent’s vaudeville act and made his first film just a few years later playing Mickey McGuire in a series of short films. The audition breakdown requested a young boy with dark hair so Mickey’s mom rubbed burnt cork to his scalp to color his blonde hair.
Long before Elijah Wood donned huge hairy feet and went off in search of the magical ring in Lord of the Rings, he kept busy as a child actor in movies like Internal Affairs and Radio Flyer.
It’s hard to top winning an Oscar at age 11, but Anna Paquin has gone on to distinguish herself in indie hits like The Squid And The Whale and on television in True Blood.
And speaking of Oscars, one of this year’s Best Actor nominees, Joaquin Phoenix, made his debut at age eight, appearing on an episode of Seven Brides For Seven Brothers with his brother River. “There are kids who get on a BMX bike when they’re eight and they go, ‘Whoa, this is incredible’ and grow up to do extreme sports,” he said. “It’s the same for me with acting.”
Stand aside Oprah, Jodie Foster must be the most powerful woman in Hollywood, possibly in all the world. Not only did she get a difficult script, long thought to be brilliant but unfilmable, to the big screen but then got the movie released in spite of the disgraceful shenanigans of her star Mel Gibson. Gibson’s recent notoriety threatened to derail “the Beaver”—three release dates have come and gone—but Foster fostered on, and the film, about a depressed man who communicates through a beaver puppet hits theatres this weekend.
Not since Anthony Hopkins grappled with a vicious ventriloquist dummy in “Magic” has a puppet been such an effective dramatic device.
Gibson plays Walter Black, a man crippled by depression. His business and marriage have fallen apart, but after a failed suicide attempt he discovers an unconventional form of therapy. He finds a furry brown beaver puppet in a dumpster, which becomes his alternate personality; his only form of communication with the outside world. The change in Walter is miraculous; unfortunately one person’s miracle is nothing more than another person’s puppet and Walter’s newfound state of wellbeing isn’t appreciated by everyone.
Of course the big question here is: Will audiences be able to put aside Gibson’s recent cycle of loopy, offensive behavior and sit back and enjoy the film? If they can judge the art and not the artist they’ll find much to like here, but if not “The Beaver” will wither and die because Gibson (and his hand puppet) hogs the spotlight.
In light of all the well deserved bad press he’s received lately it’s hard to remember that once Gibson was a top box office draw and a charismatic screen presence. The bad press hasn’t diminished that. What it may have done is add a few worry lines to his face which are very effective reminders of Walter’s state of mind.
Gibson is very good, but he doesn’t steal the show. A side story to the puppet’s spiritual journey comes from Porter (Anton Yelchin), Walter’s eldest son. Porter is struggling not to be like his dad, and discovers a way out when he meets and falls for Norah (Oscar nominee Jennifer Lawrence), a pretty cheerleader with a perfect GPA but an imperfect life. Both hand in understated but effective performances, high on naturalism, which ground the more fanciful aspects of the story.
“The Beaver,” despite some funny visuals in the trailer is not a comedy. It is a dark exploration of mental illness and its effect on the family unit. Director Foster (as opposed to star Foster; she plays Walter’s wife) occasionally struggles with tone—it’s hard not to when your star speaks with a cockney accent through an ever present Beaver puppet—but in the end presents a unique and compelling look at a subject the movies don’t usually approach.
It is likely that director Roman Polanski will not be buying a condo near you any time soon. Not only because he would be arrested if he set foot on North American soil—he’s a fugitive from American justice—but because he clearly sees the confined spaces of apartment life as stifling, claustrophobic and toxic. In movie after movie—“The Tenant,” “Repulsion,” “Rosemary’s Baby” and now “Carnage”—these closed in spaces are scenes of tension and strife.
